Question Writing and Element Features
Posted on 2024-07-23 by Eliot Robson
Various new features and quality of life improvements for question creation have been recently deployed. These include new elements, additional features for existing elements, and more utility code to improve the experience of question writing.
New Elements
pl-hidden-hints
The pl-hidden-hints element allows course content
developers to progressively reveal hints for a given question variant as more submissions
are received. In the example below, the first two hints are available to the student
immediately, while the third is only shown after three valid submissions.
For more information and examples, see the pl-hidden-hints documentation.
pl-big-o-input
The pl-big-o-input element allows instructors to easily
write questions asking for big-O family asymptotic notation. This is especially useful for
asking students about algorithmic runtime. Of note is that this element gives partial credit
for technically correct but non-optimal answers.
For more information and examples, see the pl-big-o-input documentation.
pl-dataframe
The pl-dataframe element allows for displaying Pandas
DataFrames using customizable display options. This functionality was previously included in
the the pl-python-variable element, but that has been
deprecated in favor of the new pl-dataframe element while
expanding the available features. This accompanies greater support for Pandas DataFrame
serialization.
For more information and examples, see the pl-dataframe documentation.
New Element Features
pl-python-variable
As mentioned above, the pl-python-variable element has had
DataFrame display functionality deprecated in favor of the
pl-dataframe element. However, the
pl-python-variable element has received support for
displaying complex objects by way of the Python
pprint module. This makes it much
easier to print complex dictionaries and other nested data types.
For more information and examples, see the pl-python-variable documentation.
pl-external-grader-variables
Previously, available variables for externally graded questions in Python had to be defined in
a server.py file. Now, the
pl-external-grader-variables element has support for defining
these variables directly in the question.html file. This means that
server.py files defining just these variables can be removed, thus decreasing the
maintenance burden for courses.
For more information and examples, see the pl-external-grader-variables documentation.
pl-graph
The pl-graph element has expanded functionality for
displaying adjacency matrices (being able to handle negative weights and undirected graphs),
and now has support for displaying NetworkX graphs.
For more information and examples, see the pl-graph documentation.
Utility Code Improvements
There have been substantial improvements to utility code available to instructors in the
prairielearn.py Python library, including greater support for JSON serialization and
more utility functions usable in writing questions. These changes have primarily been to
facilitate writing generation and grader code for questions and to support the new elements and
features discussed above. This has all been detailed in
updated and expanded documentation on question writing.
If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, you can submit them at https://github.com/PrairieLearn/PrairieLearn/discussions. These changes were a combined effort by multiple people, including Eliot Robson and James J Balamuta from UIUC.