QZB
                      design thoughts v.3

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Q. What are the ideal features of a Quiz-handling software?
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A. Here are some points:
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1. Flexibility

1.1. In kinds of possible questions (multiple choice, fillin,
     hot-picture...)

1.2. Interactive mode (with hints, replys...)

1.3. Non-interactive mode (by email, for example)

1.4. Statistics-gathering features (scores, grades,...)

1.5. Plug-ins for automatic quiz content generators

2. Ability to have easily managable question repositories

2.1. Database of questions, their uses and results shown
     by students on specific questions

2.2. Possibility to regroup questions into different kinds of
     quizzes.

3. Possibility to use common software (like Web-browsers),
   information technology (email, web) and hardware (including old
   one)

4. Expert-friendliness

4.1. Human-readable data files

4.2. Open source / freeware software

5. Scalability in the easiness of use (simple things can
   be done without much learning)

5.1. Good documentation

5.2. Many examples of use

6. Interoperability

6.1. Convertors from one quiz-storage format to another

6.2. Plug-ins for automatic data interchange with
     administrative software

7. Security

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Q. What is a possible structure for such quiz software?
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A. One possible way is to have independent parts:
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1. Question DB

2. Link to students DB

3. Quiz-factory

4. Quiz-server

5. Plug-in modules which extend functionality

6. Convertors

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Q. What if one needs to perform a test quickly?
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A. With ideal quiz software it could be like this:
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For example, in the simplest case when an instructor just want
to make a small test on students, he will need to:

1. Write questions and mark right answers in some kind of
format

2. Upload this file to quiz-server (or just save file
in a directory quiz-server is aware about)

3. Give students an URL to the quiz server and an ID of the quiz

4. Read a file with results from quiz-server

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Q. What is a possible dataflow in such quiz software?
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A. I see it like this:
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Data which circulate is of different kind:

1. Questions for quizzes

2. Ready-to-run quizzes

3. Mapping students-to-quizzes

4. Quiz results/statistics

Existing Quiz software tend to mix everything together,
making question reuse a problem.

There are 3 nodes which exchange information, namely:

1. Instructor(s), question author

2. Students

3. Quiz-server