Installation

Install R/exams via CRAN with install.packages("exams").

Running the package for the first time

exams uses rtools to create zip files. Make sure the proper rtools is installed. An error message will appear if rtools does not have permission to create zip files.
To give permission for creating .zip for windows: Control Panel > System and Security > System > Advanced System Settings > Environmental Variables > add “C:/RTools/bin”
You may also need to install dependent packages like tth for math notation.

Types of questions

• Single correct answer MCQ (schoice)
• Multiple correct answer MCQ (mchoice)
• Numeric answer (num)
• String (string)

Cloze is another option but is not supported by blackboard, this permits a combination of the above for the MCQ answer list

An example question

This example displays the correct answer and 3 randomly chosen option out of 6 possible answers.

Question
========
What is your name?

\```{r question, results = "hide", echo=F}
# list of possible answer as a character vector
knights_of_camelot <- c("Arthur, King of the Britons", 
                        "Sir Lancelot the Brave",
                        "Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot",
                        "Sir Galahad the Pure",
                        "Sir Bedevere the Wise",
                        "Patsy")

# solution to the vector above                        
solutions <- c(FALSE, TRUE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE)

# explanations (feedback for students)
explanations <- c("I didn't vote for him",
        "His favourite colour is blue",
        "He doesn't know the capital of Assyria",
        "His favourite colour is blue. No, yel...",
        "Knows nothing about swallows",
        "Clip Clop")
\```
        
\```{r answerlist, echo=F, results = "asis"}
# helper function to format the list of possible answers
answerlist(knights_of_camelot, markup = "markdown")
\```


Solution
========
\```{r solutionlist, echo = FALSE, results = "asis"}
answerlist(ifelse(solultions, "True", "False"), explanations, markup = "markdown")
\```

Meta-information
================
exname: Bridgekeeper
extype: schoice
exsolution: `\r mchoice2string(solutions)`
exshuffle: 4

This renders like this:

Exam 1

    Question

    What is your name?

        Sir Bedevere the Wise
        Arthur, King of the Britons
        Sir Galahad the Pure
        Sir Lancelot the Brave

    Solution
        False. Knows nothing about swallows
        False. I didn't vote for him
        False. His favourite colour is blue. No, yel.
        True. His favourite colour is blue

You could also skip the solutions vector and include it in the explanations vector like c("False. I didn't vote for him"). Of course, the solution does not appear immediately in blackboard but make sure the option for solutions and feedback to appear is checked.

Compiling the exam

I have written a script to compile the exam. The compiling function (exams2blackboard) requires a list of file names to generate the exam. Each file represents a question. Versions of a question (n) generate a pool of questions. The list should not contain subdirectories or files not to be included in the exam. exams2html is a means of checking a file/list of exam questions renders properly in html (or exams2pdf).

There are several means of customising the metadata of the exam. Here I have:

• turned off partial marks - is TRUE by default
• used custom directories to search for the questions and save the output zip.
• set 10 copies for each question using the variable n
• set the name of the zip file using the variable name
• set the number of points for each question to 1, default = 10

library("exams")
options(device.ask.default = FALSE)

## content and output directory
mydir <- "C:/Users/kongj/OneDrive - TCDUD.onmicrosoft.com/Teaching/Biostats/Midsem MCQ"

## define exam questions (each item in list is a pool)
myexam <- list.files(paste0(mydir,"/questions"), pattern = ".Rmd")

# render single question
#exams2html(list("question3.Rmd"), edir = paste0(mydir,"/questions"))

## generate .zip with Blackboard exam with n replicates
exams2blackboard(file = myexam, n = 10, name = 'Jacinta', dir = mydir,
                 edir = paste0(mydir,"/questions"),
                 eval = list(partial = FALSE, negative = FALSE),
                 points = 1
                 )