Getting Started

Known bugs

Note

  • Pleae report bugs

Login for the first time

  • Login to to the server with your email and password which is probably your email.

  • If this is your fist login, you will prompted to change your password.

Create the first exercise

  • After login , several buttons are visible on the toolbar.

../../_images/toolbar.png

  • The ShowAll button toggles the display of unpublished exercises.

  • Press the ShowAll button and now the circle icon to the left is now filled in. Below the toolbar, you will now now see a symbol along with Exercise name.

../../_images/add_exercise.png

  • Use your mouse to click on Exercise name.

  • Now you can enter title of the new exercise. E.g. Kinetic energy of an ideal gas.

  • Hit the Return key.

The new exercise will now be shown under the toolbar.

../../_images/new_exercise.png

  • If you have zip file of exercises, this is the right time to import them. See

    import exercises

Edit the exercise

  • Click the exercise and select the icon on the top left of the toolbar. This reveals a second toolbar:

../../_images/exercise_toolbar.png

  • Click on the LiveEdit button.

You will now have a split screen with the formatted exercise on the left and the XML representation on the right.

../../_images/exercise_live_edit.png

  • Press the Assets button below the toolbar. The box expands to show the attachments for this exercise.

../../_images/exercise_assets.png

  • Press the Camera icon () to upload a JPG or PNG file. Use a small file, a few 100Kb at most.

  • In the XML representation, change the value contained in the <figure> tag to be the name of the file you uploaded.

  • Press the Save button on the XML representation panel. You will now see a thumbnail of the image along with the exersize.

  • In the the XML, you can rename the exercise by changing the contents of the <exercisnename> tag.

If you are impatient to improvise on the file by editing the XML, note the following basic points.

  • Delete any sections you want; make sure XML remains legal

  • You can try some standard HTML syntax. Remember though:

    • all tags must be closed.

    • not all HTML is implemented.

    • all text and HTML belongs inside the <text> tags

  • The <expression> tag contains the question’s correct answer

  • All variables in <expression> must receive numerical assignments in the <global> tag

  • All question keys must be unique in the exercise

  • All choices keys must be unique in the multiple choice question.

  • Vi mode is enabled if you choose Switch keymap default.

  • The <right> tag is used to right justify a figure on the page. Delete the entire line if you are not going to use a figure.

  • Mathematical expressions are interpreted through KaTeX, which is a subset of LaTeX.

Save the exercise

  • Press Save when there are no errors

Note

  • You will not be able to save if there are errors in the XML

Warning

  • In case you make a mess of the XML and can’t recover:

    • Press the button (reset), it is the blue button next to the Save button in the editing box

    • Start over completely and reload the question

    • If the XML is really messed up , try XML & assets instead of Live Edit

Publish the exercise

  • Press Options in the toolbar, which is next to LiveEdit in the blue toolbar.

  • Click on the Published checkbox to enable it

  • Press the Save button to publish the exercise

Publish the course

Ensure you are displaying the toolbar shows. If it’s not visible press the icon in the top left corner.

  • Press the Course button from the toolbar

  • A new toolbar is now shown, from it press Options

  • Change the following settings:

    • In the Email reply to card, replace the email with yours

    • In the Owners card, select yourself and super

    • In the Course name card, change the name of the course if you wish. It defaults to your CID.

    • In the Allow anonymous student card, check off Allow anonymous student if you want to permit anonymous logins. (If you want, you can disable this at a later time and remove anonymously registered students).

  • Press the Save button when you’ve make all the changes to the course.

  • You can now see what the course looks like for students by checking Student view

More examples

To see some example questions and how they are formatted, you can log into https://examples.opentaproject.com. This site allows anonymous login.

If you wish to save your work, a self registration should be possible after a successful anonymous login.

Make sure the toolbar is visible by clicking icon at the top left.

See who has used your site

Click the Users icon () in the toolbar to see all the users in the course.

Note

Please don’t add or delete users until you know what you are doing.

Panic: Exercises are messed up

Warning

To recover from a broken state:

  • From the toolbar, press Exercises -> Reload Exercises and then the Perform reload button.