In NicolasJBM/genexam: Creation and Generation of Exams

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>",
  fig.path = "README-"
)
options(tibble.print_min = 5, tibble.print_max = 5)
library(writer)
library(genexam)

genexam

Overview

genexam is a package I designed to help teachers perform four distinct sets of tasks:

• generate exam (multiple choice or open questions);
• gather in a single database information about questions, students, solutions, and answers;
• check and analyse results across students and questions;
• create and send individual reports to students.

Each tasks is handled by a specific shiny gadget I will desribe hereafter.

Pre-requisites

To use the package, several complementary pieces of (free) software must be installed on your computer. Here are the links towards the installation files:

library(dplyr)
library(htmlTable)
data.frame(
  Software = c(
    "R",
    "Rtools",
    "RStudio",
    "Latex",
    "Pdf",
    "Images",
    "perl"
  ),
  Windows = c(
    '<a href="https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/" target="_blank">R for Windows</a>',
    '<a href="https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/Rtools/" target="_blank">RTools</a>',
    '<a href="https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/" target="_blank">RStudio</a>',
    '<a href="https://miktex.org/download" target="_blank">Miktex</a>',
    '<a href="https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/" target="_blank">pdftk</a>',
    '<a href="https://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php" target="_blank">imagemagik</a>',
    '<a href="http://strawberryperl.com/" target="_blank">perl</a>'
  ),
  'Mac OS X' = c(
    '<a href="https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/" target="_blank">R for mac OS X</a>',
    '-',
    '<a href="https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/">RStudio</a>',
    '<a href="https://www.tug.org/texlive/" target="_blank">Texlive</a>',
    '<a href="https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/" target="_blank">pdftk</a>',
    '<a href="https://legacy.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php" target="_blank">imagemagik</a>',
    '-'
  )
) %>%
  htmlTable(
    rnames = F,
    header = names(.),
    align = c("l","c","c")
  )

In addition, you also need to have a package containing the templates of questions to be used for the exams. I created the package manacc for a management accounting course. You can install this package by typing the following lines of code in the R console:

install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("NicolasJBM/manacc")

Installation

The package genexam is only available under its development version. You can install it from Github by typing in the R console the following lines of code:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("NicolasJBM/genexam")

Once the package installed, you can start using the functions.

Functions

There are four main functions in genexam:

• genexam() is a shiny gadget to select questions, assign points, and generate the exam;
• gradexam() is a shiny gadget to gather information about questions, solutions, and students, scan the answers, and build a complete database;
• checkexam() is a shiny gadget to analyse the results of exams stored in the database created by gradexam();
• sendexam() is a shiny gadget to create individual reports based on the results and send them to the students.

In addition, there are also a few supporting functions:

• int(), dbl(), and pct() format numbers respectively as integers, doubles, or percentages;
• genexam_param_quest() is a function embedded in question templates to retrieve information necessary for their generation;
• genexam_make_scan_A4() is on exam2nops() from the exams package and create answer sheets;
• genexam_simulate() simulate answers to test the package.

Finally, a template of exam helps structuring the use of the package:

• a markdown template is used to create the folder in which exams will be generated and stored;
• a rstudio addin file places the four main functions in the rstudio interface.

Usage

Create a folder for exams

Generate exams

Scan and grade exams

Check exams results

Send individual reports

NicolasJBM/genexam documentation built on June 28, 2019, 2:42 p.m.