Creating Algorithmically Generated Questions Using a Modern, Open-sourced, Online Platform
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PrairieLearn is an open source, extensible online assessment platform built on modern web technologies. In this workshop, we will focus on how PrairieLearn can be used to improve student learning in undergraduate computer science classes. However, the platform is also more than suitable for use as an assessment engine in a variety of courses including the humanities, social, physical, and life sciences. In the first part of the workshop, we will showcase multiple question styles that highlight PrairieLearn's abilities as an online platform, including deploying automatically and manually graded questions at scale in large classes. In the second part of the workshop, we will discuss the anatomy of a PrairieLearn question, create several custom questions, and design assessments in PrairieLearn. In the third part, we will share strategies on adopting PrairieLearn at your institution. In particular, how algorithmically generated questions can be used in support of alternative grading schemes such as Mastery- or Specifications-Grading. Finally, we will share how PrairieLearn can be extended to support other coding languages and paradigms with custom and external autograders. There will be plenty of opportunities for questions throughout the workshop, and we intend to leave plenty of time for additional 1:1 support and training. Attendees will be able to attend the session virtually and are recommended to bring a web-connected computing device. By the end of the session, attendees will know enough to run a whole class on PrairieLearn including designing questions appropriate for homework, labs, and tests.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.015 | 0.063 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.045 | 0.021 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".