MCQ-XeLaTeX: How to use it with Moodle and for online exams

Date

2020-04-01 (updated 2024-11-14)

Online exams, Multiple Choice Questions in XeLaTeX, and Moodle

Two types of assessment: multiple choice question, and mathematics essay.

The first: on-screen selection of answer from a set of possible choices. The second: a PDF with some exercises/open questions is given via moodle, then the student writes solutions/answers on a sheet of paper, document-scans them to a PDF file before the end of the exam, and uploads it as essay to moodle.

Needed files: last versions of mcq.py and mcq.sty .

Just in case, the OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) script can be found here: omarscan.py.

Multiple Choice Questions

As in the LaTeX documentation of mcq.sty documentation, create a XeLaTeX file with questions, default marking values, and answers. An example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{mcq}
\moodlecategory{2020-04-21 test quiz}
%===================================================================
\headline{Example Course, No Date (16:00, U1-09)}

\puntigiusta{3} % points for a correct answer
\puntisbagliata{-1} % points for a wrong answer
\puntiempty{0}  % points for non-response.

\begin{document}
\begin{esercizi}{}

\begin{exerm}
What is the color of Mars?
\begin{rispm}
\risp[=] red  %This is the correct answer
\risp green
\risp blue
\risp white
\end{rispm}
\end{exerm}

\begin{exerm}
$1+3=$ ...
\begin{rispm}
\risp[=] 4 %This is the correct answer
\risp 3
\risp 2
\risp 5
\end{rispm}
\end{exerm}

\end{esercizi}
\end{document}

Then simply generate a .gift.txt file:

$ mcq.py --gift filename.tex  > filename.gift.txt

The output can be imported in MOODLE as plain/text file. Select format: GIFT.

If the command \moodlecategory{categoryname} is used in the tex preamble, the questions will be imported in the category categoryname (if the names of the esercizi sections are empty) or categoryname/sectionname for each section name of groups of questions:

\begin{esercizi}{sectionmame}
...
\end{esercizi}

\begin{esercizi*}{sectionname2}

\end{esercizi}

The quiz can then easily be generated: each question score is normalized to 1. Just add all necessary questions to a Moodle quiz (permuted answers and questions, duration, …). Check LaTeX documentation of mcq.sty for full details.

Essay Questions

Being mathematics, you need to give a PDF document as exam, and expect the student to upload a PDF document at the end of the exam duration.

So, write a tex file as described in LaTeX documentation of mcq.sty, full of exercises with variants and solutions:

\usepackage[bubblesheet,doexe,sol]{mcq}
...
\begin{esercizi*}{}
...
\begin{exe}
\begin{varianti}
\varitem
Question 1 \blank{Answer 1}
\varitem
Question 2 \blank{Answer 2}
\varitem
Question 3 \blank{Answer 3}
\end{varianti}
\end{exe}
...
\end{esercizi*}

Variants can be automatically generated by CASengine, if necessary. Now, generate a number of copies (either with mcq CLI, or with the command):

$ mcq.py -n 50 filename.tex
$ xelatex filename_exam.tex
$ xelatex filename_exam.tex

Remove the sol option to remove the warning.

Now, how to split the output filename_exam.pdf into 50 single PDF documents, and assign one to each to the students?

Just use the --split-for-moodle= option in mcq:

$ mcq.py --split-for-moodle=templatefile.html filename_exam.pdf

The file templatefile.html must exist, and its content is the HTML part of the essay question given to moodle, with the following important two template variables:

{SecretFolder} = the "secret" folder were all the files
                 will be stored (local and remote)
{PDF}          = the PDF of the exam

The syntax is the python strings format mini-language: the only two variables are {SecretFolder} and {PDF}. If one needs to include a brace character in the literal text, it can be escaped by doubling: {{ and }}.

Example of templatefile.html content (the first line is necessary):

<p>
  <a href="https://www.example.com/subdir/{SecretFolder}/{PDF}">
  »Download the PDF document: ({PDF})«
  </a>
</p>

The file I would use:

<p>
 <a href="https://www.dlfer.xyz/var/{SecretFolder}/{PDF}">
 »Scaricare qui il testo in PDF: ({PDF})«
 </a>
</p>
<p>[PRIMA DELLA FINE <b>CARICARE IL FILE PDF</b> (document-scan)
   DEL COMPITO SVOLTO QUA SOTTO]<br>
   [Controllare di avere caricato correttamente il file
   prima di inviare tutto e terminare la prova]
</p>

It will split the PDF document into 50 documents, each tagged with the unique four-characters code of the variant, and generate a moodle XML archive of 50 essay questions each linking to the proper PDF in the external URL. The files are in a SecretFolder, which means are created and stored in a folder with a hashed name, such as 7Rse-RseH-seHD.

Upload the folder with the PDF documents to a suitable public website, the one set in the template.

Create a category in moodle, or have it defined in tex by \moodlecategory{cat}. Import the XML questions file in the catogory, or get it taken from the moodle XML file. Then create a moodle quiz with just one random question taken from the given category.

Important

The files are supposed to be hosted in an external web site (until I will understand how to predict uploaded file URLs, in moodle), if you want to use the generated moodle_xml. Otherwise, just manually create essay questions in moodle and attach each one of the PDF files to each one of manually created questions.