WeBWorK Main Forum

secure testing

secure testing

by Mitch Rothstein -
Number of replies: 4
We are considering using WebWork for precalculus testing. We currently use a homegrown testing system, administering six midterm exams and a final in a testing lab. I'd love to hear from anyone who has used WebWork in a similar setting, to get a sense of how it's going and what issues we need to think about.
Thanks.

Mitch
In reply to Mitch Rothstein

Re: secure testing

by Gavin LaRose -
Hi Mitch,

There are a number of places that are using WeBWorK for a variety of different types of testing. We're currently using it at the University of Michigan for our Gateway testing program; there's some quick information about what that means at http://instruct.math.lsa.umich.edu/gw/. I understand that other people have used it for tests and quizzes that are given in a lab, where students take a test or quiz on-line in a proctored environments as a class, and there are a number of features that will appear in the next (2.4) WeBWorK release that should make that type of use somewhat easier.

There is now some documentation on WeBWorK's different testing capabilities available at http://devel.webwork.rochester.edu/twiki/bin/view/Webwork/GatewayTesting which may also help frame your picture of how WeBWorK might fit in with your needs.

I'd also be happy to answer any specific questions you might have. We may also get some others who have used WeBWorK for in other testing contexts to chime in here.

Cheers,
Gavin
In reply to Gavin LaRose

Re: secure testing

by Mitch Rothstein -
Thanks, Gavin. Do you have an idea of when 2.4 will be released?

Mitch
In reply to Mitch Rothstein

Re: secure testing

by Michael Gage -
I expect 2.4 to be ready towards the end of this semester -- say by the middle of May to be safe. If you would like to test it earlier you can use

cvs update -A -d

in the webwork2 and pg directories to get the latest bleeding edge version of WeBWorK.

You should NOT do this for a production version of WeBWorK, but it is reasonably stable if you are working on an experimental site and will give you a good idea of how the new features will work.

You will need to manually update conf/global.conf, conf/database.conf as usual and may need to run
bin/wwdb_upgrade to add fields to the database.

-- Mike
In reply to Michael Gage

Re: secure testing

by Gavin LaRose -
> [You] may need to run bin/wwdb_upgrade to add fields
> to the database.

You will definitely need to run wwdb_upgrade. There are a number of new fields in the database to deal with the IP restricted sets and tests that restrict access to score and other information after completion.

Gavin