Re: Difficulty levels

[sergey@total-knowledge.com]

>> OK. Let's go over this in detail.
>>
>> First what we want to achieve.
>> There are objects whose presentation order is undefined.
>> i.e. What order do we show explanations in, when topic is first
>> accessed?
>> What order do we preset problems to solve in?
>> Sure, some times it's rigidly defined by teacher (i.e. problem B must
>> be solved only after problem A is solved), but sometimes it
>> doesn't matter as much. At the same time we may want to provide
>> teacher to give some guidance to students. One such way is to allow
>> to set "difficulty" level on objects, and then have student set their
>> preferred difficulty level (on per-course basis). Then, when rendering
>> object lists, objects of his preferred difficulty level will be rendered
>> first.
>>
>> Now questions:
>> 1. What object difficulty level should be bound to?

My opinion, this object is a Course, I explained myself in previous
discussions.

>> i.e. can same problem
>>     have different levels in different courses. How do we organize that?
>>     What if the problem is in different courses as a result of being
>> included
>>     in some sub-topic...

Yes, same problem can have different levels in different courses because
an author is the one who assigns level of difficulty to it based on his
judgement.

>> 2. Who sets the difficulty level?

Author. If Teacher needs to set difficulty levels, he will have to become
an Author.

>> Should it be affected by user votes?

My strong opinion is "No". Students are too subjective, they usually hate
studying as well as teachers and course authors who forse them to do that.

>> 3. Should we allow authors arbitrary levels or should we have a
>> predefined set?

Arbitrary. Minimum should be set to 1 for cleaner design from the
programming point of view, maximum is indefinite.

>> 4. Should we allow authors arbitrary level names or should we just stick
>> with numerics?

Yes, we should allow an arbitrary level names. What if author doesn't want
any levels at all, or just one level? He will be forsed to choose
something from "begginer"/"intermidiate"/"advanced" set? He will be very
unhappy.
So, the minimum number for the arbitrary level names is 1(can be empty
string to take care of "no levels at all" situation).

>>
>> If you have more questions, add them to the list.
>>
>
> Perhaps questions below should be answered too:
>
> 5. What happens when author adds object to his course from the Repository?
>    Is difficulty level of that object stays the same or will be determined
>    by current author?
>

O! Finally a good question!
It cannot stay the same by default, since difficulty levels are set by
different authors who were using different sets of levels with different
level's names when they were creating their courses.
When author adds an UMO from the Repository, he will be asked to chose
difficulty level from the existing set of levels for his course, or the
UMO will be assigned to the default "empty name" level if there are no
difficulty levels exist at all.



> 6. Will teacher be able to assign his course objects to students by level
> of difficulty?
>

Another good question.
He should, and he doesn't have to have any Author rights to do that.
Studends have their own ratings asigned to them based on their
performances. Calculations of those student ratings will take into account
a "Course difficulty level" variable. So it will be indirect correlation
between Student rating and Course difficulty level. Teacher should be able
to manage difficulty levels to meet Students needs at any particular stage
of studying a course.


>
>> --
>> Ilya A. Volynets-Evenbakh
>> Total Knowledge. CTO
>> http://www.total-knowledge.com
>>
>>
>
>
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