WeBWorK Problems

Show Me Another Randomization Requirement

Show Me Another Randomization Requirement

by Nicole Wilson -
Number of replies: 2
In the description of "Show me another" (see below) it says, that if there isn't sufficent randomization in a problem then Show Me Another can fail.

What does sufficient randomization mean in this context?


Gotchas
The show me another feature will never show solutions to a students assigned problem. However if there isn't sufficient randomization in a problem (or if there is no randomization) then Show Me Another can fail with a warning message when students try to use it. Its also not impossible that one student will see solutions to the same version of a problem that is assigned to a different student. Furthermore, not every problem has a written solution which makes the Show Me Another feature less helpful. In general it is the responsibility of the instructor to choose problems which work well with Show Me Another. Good problems have a decent amount of randomization (at least two random parameters) and have a full solution.
In reply to Nicole Wilson

Re: Show Me Another Randomization Requirement

by Alex Jordan -
In defaults.config, you have:
$pg{options}{showMeAnotherGeneratesDifferentProblem} = 5;

which you could override in localOverrides.conf or the course's course.conf.

SMA tries this many times to pick a new random seed. It compares the HTML generated for the original seed to the HTML generated for the new seeds it tries. If it gets different HTML, it proceeds. If it gets the same HTML it tries again until the 5 tries are used up. At that point it declares it likely that the problem has no randomization. Of course, it could just have been unlucky with the five seeds it tried. Or the problem might be "randomized" but 90% of versions are identical for some reason.