Smart Learning Content Protocol

[Brad Miller]

While Rob and I were at SIGCSE I was approached by a long time CS Author (Cay Horstman) to join a group in defining a standard mechanism for interactive elements in an iframe to communicate and retrieve scores from a system like Runestone.   I was happy to join in the conversation and talked a little about what Alex and I cooked up for WebWork.  Today I saw the first draft of the protocol and was happy that it was not too far from what we had done.  

This effort would generalize a bit and provide a standard javascript library with apis to  make it easier for implementors of things like WebWork to use the protocol.

The API would consist of two calls reportScores and getScores but takes a fairly generic message object that would support everything we have done for WebWork.

Are there other PreTeXt interactives that might benefit from this? The more examples we can look at the better.

Brad

Bradley Miller, PhD
Professor Emeritus Computer Science
Luther College
Founder, Runestone Academy LTD
Blog: A Reputable Journal

[Rob Beezer]

That sounds real good - thanks for pursuing this, Brad.

Brian Walton's work on fill-in problems will be new, and have results to
communicate. But that will go through Runestone Javascript anyway, if I
understand right.

Since we've never assumed a server (and logins) were present, I can't think of
anything other than WeBWorK.

But maybe someone else will remind me of something...

Rob

On 3/25/23 09:00, Brad Miller wrote:
> While Rob and I were at SIGCSE I was approached by a long time CS Author (Cay
> Horstman) to join a group in defining a standard mechanism for interactive
> elements in an iframe to communicate and retrieve scores from a system like
> Runestone.   I was happy to join in the conversation and talked a little about
> what Alex and I cooked up for WebWork.  Today I saw the first draft of the
> protocol and was happy that it was not too far from what we had done.
>
> This effort would generalize a bit and provide a standard javascript library
> with apis to  make it easier for implementors of things like WebWork to use the
> protocol.
>
> The API would consist of two calls reportScores and getScores but takes a fairly
> generic message object that would support everything we have done for WebWork.
>
> Are there other PreTeXt interactives that might benefit from this? The more
> examples we can look at the better.
>
> Brad
>

> *Bradley Miller, PhD*

> Professor Emeritus Computer Science
> Luther College

> Founder, Runestone Academy LTD <https://runestone.academy>
> Blog: A Reputable Journal <https://www.reputablejournal.com>
>
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[Brad Miller]

The nice thing about this approach is that anything in an iframe that might want to use Runestone to save or restore state could use it.  It works by creating an event in the parent window so if Runestone (or similiar) is not present the event is "cheerfully ignored" 

Brad

Bradley Miller, PhD

Professor Emeritus Computer Science
Luther College
Founder, Runestone Academy LTD

Blog: A Reputable Journal

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[Rob Beezer]

As part of an UTMOST study (where students had signed off), we once collected
clicks on the Sage "Evaluate" button as a sign of activity. And perhaps the
opening of knowls. I do not believe either uses an iFrame.

Conceivably, Desmos, GeoGebra, calcPlot3D, and maybe Jessie, could generate a
simple "there was interaction" event. And others.

Rob

On 3/25/23 09:28, Brad Miller wrote:
> The nice thing about this approach is that anything in an iframe that might want
> to use Runestone to save or restore state could use it.  It works by creating an
> event in the parent window so if Runestone (or similiar) is not present the
> event is "cheerfully ignored"
>
> Brad
>

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/3660be12-2672-4580-b05d-af087a39a12c%40Spark <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pretext-dev/3660be12-2672-4580-b05d-af087a39a12c%40Spark?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Andrew Scholer]

I'll add that communicating with components in iframes is just one of the challenges they present. They can also create real problems for presentation. They aren't too bad if the content of the iframe has a completely fixed and predictable size. They rapidly become a major PITA if the size is unpredictable and the layout of the embedded page isn't super flexible.

Anywhere there is potential to collaborate closely enough to generate embeddable components that don't require iframes, that would seem like a good goal. But as Rob points out, a common event API sounds useful even for embedded interactables regardless of if they are in an iframe.

Andrew Scholer (he/him/his)

Computer Science Instructor/Program Chair

Chemeketa Community College

503.589.7649 

computerscience.chemeketa.edu/people/andrew-scholer/

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[Alex Jordan]

> Are there other PreTeXt interactives that might benefit from this? The more examples we can look at the better.

MyOpenMath?

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[Rob Beezer]

On 3/25/23 22:58, Alex Jordan wrote:
> MyOpenMath?

Right! I knew I was forgetting something. Thanks.

[Rob Beezer]

On 3/25/23 18:12, Andrew Scholer wrote:
> They can also create real problems for presentation.
> They aren't too bad if the content of the iframe has a completely fixed and
> predictable size. They rapidly become a major PITA

I'll second that! For me it begins with the necessity of giving their size in
pixels rather than a percentage of available width, like we can do with images.

Rob

[Mitch Keller]

Nick Long and I were just talking last week about how it would be nice if interactive SageMath graphics could report back “there was interaction” to Runestone. This would be useful both for instructors to see the level of student engagement and for authors to see if interactive features they have put effort into are being used.

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-- 
Mitch Keller
mi...@rellek.net

http://www.rellek.net/

[kcri...@gmail.com]

Nick Long and I were just talking last week about how it would be nice if interactive SageMath graphics could report back “there was interaction” to Runestone. This would be useful both for instructors to see the level of student engagement and for authors to see if interactive features they have put effort into are being used.

I think if you asked Andrey N. at https://groups.google.com/g/sage-cell about this, he may be able to tell you exactly what JSON is sent back and forth when that happens (it's also presumably documented, but this probably would be quicker in terms of what is best to look for).   I imagine that is something that could be sniffed for and reported fairly easily.