On Jan 20, 6:07 am, john_perry_usm <john.pe...@usm.edu> wrote: > I don't completely agree with the concerns others have raised about > cheating. One of the wonderful aspects of computer-based evaluation is > the ability to randomize questions: not just the numbers within > questions, but the questions themselves.
There is relatively new code for creating random matrices with nice properties, which I have been meaning to advertise here anyway. I've thought of it as being useful for generating practice problems, but it had not dawned on me that it could be useful for generating random test questions. There is now an 'algorithm' keyword to the random_matrix() constructor that takes values like 'echelonizable', 'unimodular' and 'subspaces', along with a 'rank' keyword. The results are generally integer-entry matrices where relevant computations by hand (rref, kernel, column space, inverse) never devolve into too many gruesome fractions. This was a summer project by a student of mine, Billy Wonderly, and it had about the right complexity (mathematics and Sage) to fill a summer nicely. Maybe there would be other arenas (calculus, stats) where some code generating random "typical" problems would be useful? And they might also make for nice summer projects? Rob -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-edu" group. To post to this group, send email to sage-edu@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-edu+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-edu?hl=en.
