Hello,
I am trying to determine the current status of the wwmqt?
I found a wwmqt download that had a setup routine, and this appeared to install correctly but had issue with Moodle 1.9.3 actually adding questions (need to pass course id error message). Since I posted to a phpbb, this forum nd moodle.org's forum but have had no response. I found a git repository for wwmqt and downloaded what I found there, but found no installer and no instructions.
Is this integration now deceased?
Hi Marc,
It is not deceased, but it isn't under rapid development at the moment. The principal author -- Matt Leventi has now graduated from the U. of Rochester and joined Real Life so he has less time for development.
I'm actively using the "bridge1" connection between and moodle and WeBWorK (http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Moodle_Assignment) which has the two systems interacting on an assignment by assignment basis. I'm hoping to bring that up to true prime time status where
I can submit it as a fully supported module to the Moodle team. Then I'll start over again on bridge2. I'm happy to offer advice to anyone who would like to start work on bridge2 sooner, but I personally will need to concentrate on one thing at a time.
The "bridge2" version you are looking at (http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Moodle_Question_Type )
-- where individual questions are passed back to WeBWorK may well be the long term future of the WeBWorK question engine (Matt thinks it is) but it still needs some polish and there are not that many institutions using it extensively. Steve McKay at Brigham Young University is, I believe, one such user.
The git repository is Matt's own collection -- I don't know how different that is from the one we are maintaining at webwork.maa.org.
My suspicion is that the specific glitch you are experiencing is easily fixed -- I believe that moodle added an extra parameter to the calling sequence. Steve might have already fixed that, or I can probably help, but it may take a few days for me to get to it.
-- Mike
It is not deceased, but it isn't under rapid development at the moment. The principal author -- Matt Leventi has now graduated from the U. of Rochester and joined Real Life so he has less time for development.
I'm actively using the "bridge1" connection between and moodle and WeBWorK (http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Moodle_Assignment) which has the two systems interacting on an assignment by assignment basis. I'm hoping to bring that up to true prime time status where
I can submit it as a fully supported module to the Moodle team. Then I'll start over again on bridge2. I'm happy to offer advice to anyone who would like to start work on bridge2 sooner, but I personally will need to concentrate on one thing at a time.
The "bridge2" version you are looking at (http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Moodle_Question_Type )
-- where individual questions are passed back to WeBWorK may well be the long term future of the WeBWorK question engine (Matt thinks it is) but it still needs some polish and there are not that many institutions using it extensively. Steve McKay at Brigham Young University is, I believe, one such user.
The git repository is Matt's own collection -- I don't know how different that is from the one we are maintaining at webwork.maa.org.
My suspicion is that the specific glitch you are experiencing is easily fixed -- I believe that moodle added an extra parameter to the calling sequence. Steve might have already fixed that, or I can probably help, but it may take a few days for me to get to it.
-- Mike
Thanks,
I did get a note from Mike and provided details but, as you suggest, he does have REAL LIFE on his pate now, LOL.
My guess was that the error was something that could be wteaked, but with all the confusion as to what is what I didn't want to invest too much time perhaps going down an already deserted path ;=} The files in the git repository are "current" but there are no docs I can find that relate the current docs to what I used, so I am afraid that most anyone trying to look at wwmqt from scratch as I was will get as lost as I did....
I was thinking, once I got my feet wet with this, of looking at trying to get our university system to run and maintain webworks (and perhaps other systems for experimentation such as IMATHAS or STACK) for our secondary schools here in Alaska. The District with the largest student pop. is the Anchorage District, with some 50K students and UAA, while UAF in Fairbanks, which has managed to land a Cray and other resources could certainly manage this as well, but for ASD, which can barely manage Moodle, this would be an impossible task. SO, until/unless I can get the "U" to step in I think having a parallel full webworks system is going to be impractical in Alaska, which makes the wwmqt and the use of someone else's webwork server (until the hook is set - LOL) the easiest way to go, though I am more than happy to have anyone push me in any other direction....
SHort terms, as I advised Mike, is I would at least like to be able to fully document how one could get wwmqt to work with 1.9.X. With the quiz module being completely redone, anything that interfaces with it may well face major redesign, so Moodle 2 may present quite a few hurdles with respecvt to any quiz plug-in - .....
I did get a note from Mike and provided details but, as you suggest, he does have REAL LIFE on his pate now, LOL.
My guess was that the error was something that could be wteaked, but with all the confusion as to what is what I didn't want to invest too much time perhaps going down an already deserted path ;=} The files in the git repository are "current" but there are no docs I can find that relate the current docs to what I used, so I am afraid that most anyone trying to look at wwmqt from scratch as I was will get as lost as I did....
I was thinking, once I got my feet wet with this, of looking at trying to get our university system to run and maintain webworks (and perhaps other systems for experimentation such as IMATHAS or STACK) for our secondary schools here in Alaska. The District with the largest student pop. is the Anchorage District, with some 50K students and UAA, while UAF in Fairbanks, which has managed to land a Cray and other resources could certainly manage this as well, but for ASD, which can barely manage Moodle, this would be an impossible task. SO, until/unless I can get the "U" to step in I think having a parallel full webworks system is going to be impractical in Alaska, which makes the wwmqt and the use of someone else's webwork server (until the hook is set - LOL) the easiest way to go, though I am more than happy to have anyone push me in any other direction....
SHort terms, as I advised Mike, is I would at least like to be able to fully document how one could get wwmqt to work with 1.9.X. With the quiz module being completely redone, anything that interfaces with it may well face major redesign, so Moodle 2 may present quite a few hurdles with respecvt to any quiz plug-in - .....
Mike,
It looks like Mike Rich just edited this page: http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Moodle_Question_Type_Installation
and it is unclear to me whether the link to the code reflects current good code or old outdated code.
Last I heard from Mike Leventi I thought the current working code was still only available directly from him, and there is nothing that indicates whether that info is outdated........
If the links in the page will result in a download of the current code and the code I downloaded a couple of months ago is different, than it should probably be made clearer (at least I will simply do a new install to address my problems as opposed to working through the problems, a task still lying on my desk - lol)
I put a comment on the talk page for Mike R but don;t know how successful that will be....
It looks like Mike Rich just edited this page: http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Moodle_Question_Type_Installation
and it is unclear to me whether the link to the code reflects current good code or old outdated code.
Last I heard from Mike Leventi I thought the current working code was still only available directly from him, and there is nothing that indicates whether that info is outdated........
If the links in the page will result in a download of the current code and the code I downloaded a couple of months ago is different, than it should probably be made clearer (at least I will simply do a new install to address my problems as opposed to working through the problems, a task still lying on my desk - lol)
I put a comment on the talk page for Mike R but don;t know how successful that will be....
Mike Rich is also trying to install the question version of the moodle bridge.
I was doing my best to find at least reasonably current versions of the code
that you and he can use.
I had forgotten about the git repository which probably contains more up-to-date code. Since I don't currently have a working version at the UofR
(and probably won't have time to create one until toward the end of the
semester) I can't answer really detailed questions.
Hopefully Matt can at least provide a pointer to the code which is most current
and perhaps we can form a support group to polish it up. :-) Unfortunately I can't get to it just yet at this point in the semester.
I was doing my best to find at least reasonably current versions of the code
that you and he can use.
I had forgotten about the git repository which probably contains more up-to-date code. Since I don't currently have a working version at the UofR
(and probably won't have time to create one until toward the end of the
semester) I can't answer really detailed questions.
Hopefully Matt can at least provide a pointer to the code which is most current
and perhaps we can form a support group to polish it up. :-) Unfortunately I can't get to it just yet at this point in the semester.
The git repository has code, but no info on exactly what to do with it....
I received an e-mail response to my posting here from Mike L in February that indicated that wwmqt was not getting much attention, that the git repository did indeed have the latest code, that BYU was using it and that he would try to take a look at it but was under a heavy load at work.... I responded with some questions about what exactly to do with the git files vis-a-vis the files in the SVN, but never heard back.
As I noted in our conversation of a few weeks back, the code I downloaded from the SVN (which is I thought after reviewing all the threads, perhaps NOT supposed to work) is doing something but for a parameter issue which may be in fact easy to resolve, but at present outside of the scope of resources I have available to use to look at it.... a situation I assume may be typical ;=} But if there are additional issues beyond adding questions which requires the use of git code, it is at present beyond me as to whether these files simply copy of over existing files etc as I did not find any documentation....
Sooooo...... it would seem that if you want to pursue this as someone is involved from the project side the best bet would seem to be spending a few minutes with Mike L to determine exactly the relationship between the svn code and the code in his git repository and then a rework perhaps of the svn code.
I am getting queries from Moodle users on the Math forum about wwmqt and webworks generally and have proposed to university of Alaska Anchorage that the Math Dept. there start a webworks server for itself and highschool math usage statewide (UAA uses Blackboard, but many of the high schools are moving to Moodle - and webworks could be used no matter the LMS). It would certainly be the best of all worlds if the various flavors of integration (from a signle signon through LMS integration module to wwmqt) would be transparent, seamless and trivial to implement..... ;=}
WHich remonds me that I do have to ask about using asciimathml vs jsmath..... always more.....
I received an e-mail response to my posting here from Mike L in February that indicated that wwmqt was not getting much attention, that the git repository did indeed have the latest code, that BYU was using it and that he would try to take a look at it but was under a heavy load at work.... I responded with some questions about what exactly to do with the git files vis-a-vis the files in the SVN, but never heard back.
As I noted in our conversation of a few weeks back, the code I downloaded from the SVN (which is I thought after reviewing all the threads, perhaps NOT supposed to work) is doing something but for a parameter issue which may be in fact easy to resolve, but at present outside of the scope of resources I have available to use to look at it.... a situation I assume may be typical ;=} But if there are additional issues beyond adding questions which requires the use of git code, it is at present beyond me as to whether these files simply copy of over existing files etc as I did not find any documentation....
Sooooo...... it would seem that if you want to pursue this as someone is involved from the project side the best bet would seem to be spending a few minutes with Mike L to determine exactly the relationship between the svn code and the code in his git repository and then a rework perhaps of the svn code.
I am getting queries from Moodle users on the Math forum about wwmqt and webworks generally and have proposed to university of Alaska Anchorage that the Math Dept. there start a webworks server for itself and highschool math usage statewide (UAA uses Blackboard, but many of the high schools are moving to Moodle - and webworks could be used no matter the LMS). It would certainly be the best of all worlds if the various flavors of integration (from a signle signon through LMS integration module to wwmqt) would be transparent, seamless and trivial to implement..... ;=}
WHich remonds me that I do have to ask about using asciimathml vs jsmath..... always more.....
The course in linear algebra at:
https://math.webwork.rochester.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=7
gives you a pretty good idea of what is possible with the "bridge1" connection of WeBWorK and Moodle. Each WeBWorK assignment appears as an assignment in the Moodle LMS. There is single sign-on (Moodle users are automatically logged in to WeBWorK and are assigned their homwork assignment if they don't already have one. ). The record of homework assignments completed is transferred back to the Moodle grade book periodically as defined by a cron job.
The student appears to be operating only with Moodle with transparent visits to WeBWorK when doing math homework. The instructor needs to be able to assemble WeBWorK questions into assignments in WeBWorK and then assign them in Moodle. There are still occassional update problems where, for example, a due date is changed in WeBWorK but is not changed in Moodle automatically -- the Moodle connection to the assignment has to be updated as well.
While a bit annoying to the the instructor these glitches are easily worked around. I hope to get around these with a better two way communication between WeBWorK and Moodle. At present WeBWorK responds to Moodle
but I don't have Moodle's webservices and Event mechanism
working so that it will respond to WeBWorK's requests for updates.
Once that is solid I'll move on to cleaning up "bridge2" which essentially installs a new question type into the Moodle quiz. In someways this is easier, in some ways it's harder, but in general it is a newer project so there are more edges to polish.
Mike Gage
https://math.webwork.rochester.edu/moodle/course/view.php?id=7
gives you a pretty good idea of what is possible with the "bridge1" connection of WeBWorK and Moodle. Each WeBWorK assignment appears as an assignment in the Moodle LMS. There is single sign-on (Moodle users are automatically logged in to WeBWorK and are assigned their homwork assignment if they don't already have one. ). The record of homework assignments completed is transferred back to the Moodle grade book periodically as defined by a cron job.
The student appears to be operating only with Moodle with transparent visits to WeBWorK when doing math homework. The instructor needs to be able to assemble WeBWorK questions into assignments in WeBWorK and then assign them in Moodle. There are still occassional update problems where, for example, a due date is changed in WeBWorK but is not changed in Moodle automatically -- the Moodle connection to the assignment has to be updated as well.
While a bit annoying to the the instructor these glitches are easily worked around. I hope to get around these with a better two way communication between WeBWorK and Moodle. At present WeBWorK responds to Moodle
but I don't have Moodle's webservices and Event mechanism
working so that it will respond to WeBWorK's requests for updates.
Once that is solid I'll move on to cleaning up "bridge2" which essentially installs a new question type into the Moodle quiz. In someways this is easier, in some ways it's harder, but in general it is a newer project so there are more edges to polish.
Mike Gage
I never heard anything further about identifying where a current working version of the code was located or whether a fix as suggested might be available (see http://wwrk.maa.org/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=1966&parent=7874) was ever implemented......
Additionally, if it was, there are no instructions in the wiki about updating, i.e. if you do an "svn update" what then must one do vis-a-vis moodle?
Additionally, if it was, there are no instructions in the wiki about updating, i.e. if you do an "svn update" what then must one do vis-a-vis moodle?