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Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

by Yuncong Chen -
Number of replies: 5
Hi,

I have a set of practice problems in PGML with solutions. 

I would like the solutions to be available immediately after the set is assigned. I know I can set the due date to be the same as the open date. However if I do this, the set will be closed, and the answers students submit will not be recorded, nor can they check which questions have been done and which have not. For a homework set of over 50 questions, this is very inconvenient.

Is there a solution to this?

Thank you,
Yuncong
In reply to Yuncong Chen

Re: Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

by Dick Lane -
Please clarify your pedagogical objectives and corresponding behavior for an online assignment.  [Also note that your open=close does not inhibit a student checking any particular answer --- it just does not create a reviewable record of performance.]

At least one commercial system has a "Show Me Another" scenario which is focused on providing students with a template for answering each particular type of problem.  [OH, you have shown me how to compute 7-3 and 6-2, so I am now able to compute 7-2 --- WOW.]  While students may welcome such a crutch, I suspect efforts to generalize/propagate this will have substantial negative effects on long-term retention.  [Since my PGcourse.pl file provides a ShowNewVersion button for most of my problems (conditioned on success or closure of assignment), I think it important to distinguish the timing for "ANOTHER": before scored attempt is a crutch, after success is opportunity for further practice.]

At least one commercial system handles a bound for scored-attempts on a per-problem basis and provides a problem's solution after those attempts are exhausted for that problem.  Several of my colleagues have asked about ways to modify WeBWorK's handling of solution-availability on a per-assignment basis.  My response has been: create smaller assignments with shorter active durations. If there were substantial interest in that functionality, perhaps somebody would make it happen in a simpler way.

Perhaps your intent would be served by creating an indeterminate status for performance.  For such an assignment, Done/Undone would be recorded in lieu of some numerical score for partial/full credit.  From the system's point-of-view, perhaps this could be handled by creating a "DRILL" type of assignment with record-keeping but no scoring.
In reply to Dick Lane

Re: Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

by Dick Lane -
This is a qualification of my binary response to ANOTHER in my second paragraph.

I would like easy ways to construct/present responses that are adaptive to popular incorrect analyses.  This conceptual task has some similarities with crafting distractors for a multiple-choice problem: anticipate common blunders.
In reply to Dick Lane

Re: Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

by Alex Jordan -
If I understand you right, is answerHints.pl what you are looking for? You can put the common blunders into the answer checker's post filter and replace the feedback message with appropriate responses for those common blunders.
In reply to Dick Lane

Re: Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

by Alex Jordan -
Hi Dick,

Just FYI, we (Chris Hughes deserves all the credit for the coding) are almost done with "Show Me Another" for WeBWorK. You can see progress on the development branch of github in one of the open pull requests. It will be off by default and customizable problem by problem.

We were originally motivated to make it because it has been requested by a number of instructors who won't switch from a commercial product until this kind of thing exists. Since then, we've realized alternate uses for it, such as "Showing Me Another" without revealing solutions simply as a way to give free practice to students without using attempts. If you read the whole thread on github you might see other uses.
In reply to Yuncong Chen

Re: Can I make solutions available but still record answer?

by Alex Jordan -
Yes, in the Course Configuration menu, in the Permissions tab, you can make solutions and/or correct answers visible before due dates. This applies to the entire course though, not set by set.