Exercise documents

A Teachpoint exercise is described by an exercise document. The exercise document is used to produce both

the exercise page, which contains questions that are answered by the student, and
the answer page, which gives students feedback on their answers. An answer page is generated based on the particular student responses.

The exercise document is usually not written directly. Instead, it is produced by processing an exercise core document (which describes the questions and answers) using an exercise stylesheet (which describes the page layout, navigation links, and miscellaneous text of the exercise and answer pages).

Exercise core documents

An exercise core document describes a list of questions. Here's an example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tp:exercise xmlns:tp="http://teachpoint.com">
  <tp:questions>
    <tp:question type="exclusive_choice">
      "Conifers" are so named because
      <tp:item>they are cone-shaped</tp:item>
      <tp:item>they originated during the Coniceous era</tp:item>
      <tp:item correct="yes">they carry their seeds in cones</tp:item>
      .
    </tp:question>
  </tp:questions>
</tp:exercise>

If this exercise is processed with the default exercise stylesheet, the resulting exercise page looks like this.

The answer page looks like this if the question is answered correctly, otherwise like this.

The available tags are as follows:

<tp:exercise>
    <tp:questions>
        ...
    </tp:questions>
</tp:exercise>

These tags enclose the list of questions.

<tp:question type="X" [weight="Y"] [format="Z"] [ordered="W"]>
    ...
    [ <tp:explanation>
        ...
    </tp:explanation> ]
</tp:question>

Specifies a question of type X:

exclusive_choice: a multiple choice question with a single correct answer.
inclusive_choice: a multiple choice question with the possibility of multiple correct answers, or a list of True/False questions.
fill_in_the_blank: a question with textual answers.

If an <tp:explanation> tag is present, its content is displayed in the answer page if the student's response is not completely right.

<tp:item [correct="yes"] [size="X"] [exact="Y"]>
    ...
    [ <tp:explanation>
        ...
    </tp:explanation> ]
</tp:item>

Specifies an answer choices or components. For type file-in-the-blank this represents a text field to be filled in by the student, and the enclosed text is the correct answer. For the other types this represents an alternative answer, and the enclosed content is that answer (text, images, or a combination).

Grading

Each student completion of an exercise produces a grade between 0 and 1. Each question can be assigned a weight in the computation of this grade, using the weight attribute of <tp:question> tag. By default each question has weight 1, so the exercise grade is the average of the question grades.

Exclusive-choice questions

Each <tp:item> element represents an alternative answer. The correct="yes" attribute specifies the right answer.

The body of teach <tp:item> element is arbitrary XHTML. It may contains text, images, etc. If a <tp:explanation> tag is present, its content is displayed in the answer page if this item is selected by the student.

The optional format attribute of <tp:question> specifies the layout to be used for the question.

list: (default) the alternatives are presented in a vertical list with a radio button to the left of each item.
menu: The alternatives are presented in a pop-up menu.
table_horizontal: The alternatives are presented in a horizontal row, with a radio button above each item.

Inclusive-choice questions

Each <tp:item> element represents an alternative answer. The correct="yes" attribute specifies a right answer; multiple answers may have this attribute. If a <tp:explanation> tag is present, its content is displayed in the answer page if the item is answered incorrectly.

The alternative answers are presented in a list with a checkbox next to each item.

Fill-in-the-blank questions

Each <tp:item> element represents one "answer field". The body of the element is the correct answer (case is ignored when evaluating responses). If a <tp:explanation> tag is present, its content is displayed in the answer page if the item is answered incorrectly.

The optional size attribute gives the width of the input field in characters. If the exact="no" attribute is given, a student response will be counted as correct if it contains the correct answer as a substring.

If the ordered="no" attribute is present, then the order of responses doesn't matter.

Exercise documents

Exercise documents can contain the following tags, which are normally added to exercise core documents by the exercise stylesheet.

<tp:anchor action="X">
...
</tp:anchor>

This generates a navigation hyperlink. X is one of:

next: go to the next content page (as defined by the course structure file, student properties, etc.).
student_home: go to the student home page.
course_home: go to the course home page.
help: go to a help page.
ef_start: go to review topics for an exercise.
repeat_ex: while in review mode, repeat the exercise.

<tp:if page="X">
    ...
</tp:if>

This outputs the enclosed content if the document is being to generate a:

exercise: exercise page
answer_page: answer page

<tp:if questionid="X" response="Y">
    ...
</tp:if>

This outputs the enclosed content according to the student response to question X, where Y is one of

absent: there was no response to the (choice) question.
present: there was a response to the (choice) question.
right: the response to the question was right.
wrong: there was a response to the question, and the response was wrong.

<tp:if itemid="X" response="Y">
    ...
<tp:/if>

This output the enclosed content according to the student response to item X, where Y is one of

none: there was no response to (text) item X.
right: the response to item X was right.
wrong: there was a response, and it was wrong.
chosen: item X was chosen.
not_chosen item X was not chosen.
blank: item X was left blank.

<tp:show what="X"/>

Show text according to X:

score: on answer pages, show the score (as a percentage).

<tp:show questionid="X" what="Y"/>

Show text for question X:

menu: generate a popup menu of the question's answer choices.
right_anwer: show the questions right answer.
student_response: show the student's response (choice questions).

<tp:show itemid="x" what="input"/>

Show text for item X:

input: generate a text input field for the item.
radiobutton: generate a radio button for the item.
checkbox: generate a checkbox for the item.
right_answer: show the right answer for the item.
student_response: show the student response to the item.
seqno: show the sequence number (1, 2, ...) of the item within the question.

Next-> Course documents

Teachpoint home page