SE350 Question Writer

This script allows you to write your quiz questions for SE350 in JSON instead of the d2l csv format.

Installation

You must have Ruby installed to run this script. I haven't tested many versions but I suspect it will work on Ruby 1.8.7+, which is installed on OSX and most Linux systems out of the box.

Clone this repository to your system git clone git://github.com/lucaswoj/se350-question-writer.git; cd se350-question-writer

Install the bundler gem, which handles this project's dependencies, by running gem install bundler. Then use bundler to install this app's dependencies by running bundle install.

Mark the validator script as executable chmod +x ./se350-question-writer

Usage

This script takes in your quiz questions as a JSON string from stdin and prints a tar archive of validated d2l-formatted question files to stdout.

It can be run as ./se350-question-writer < examples/example.json > examples/example.tar where examples/example.json is formatted like

[{
  "title": "Basic Arithmetic",
  "question": "What is the result of this mathematical operation\n1 + 1 = ?\nUse a decimal base.",
  "feedback": "Adding numbers is an essential skill. MATH 115 and MATH 117",
  "options": [
    {"answer": 5, "points": 0, "feedback": "Incorrect answer. Revisit your basic math skills."},
    {"answer": 11, "points": 0, "feedback": "Incorrect answer. Revisit your basic math skills."},
    {"answer": 3, "points": 50, "feedback": "The question was phrased in the decimal system."},
    {"answer": 2, "points": 100, "feedback": "Correct."}
  ]
}, ...]

to produce a tar archive of d2l-formatted questions like

NewQuestion,MC,
Title,"Basic Arithmetic",
QuestionText,"
What is the result of this mathematical operation
1 + 1 = ?
Use a decimal base.
",
Option,0,"5",,"Incorrect answer. Revisit your basic math skills."
Option,0,"11",,"Incorrect answer. Revisit your basic math skills."
Option,50,"3",,"The question was phrased in the decimal system."
Option,100,"2",,"Correct."
Feedback,"Adding numbers is an essential skill. MATH 115 and MATH 117",,,,

Todo

• Support YAML-formatted questions
• Automatically generate generic feedback for questions and options
• Unit tests? I guess...