Help me find a better math placement test solution!
March 4, 2008 10:04 AM Subscribe
Any suggestions for cheap, online placement test setups for mathematics?
I'm in charge of organizing/administering the placement test for mathematics at the small liberal arts college where I work. For the last 5 years or so, we have used AiM Assessment in Mathematics as the back-end of our placement system. This setup uses Maple as the "brains" of a system that serves up browser-based multiple choice questions (at least for the placement test implementation part of things).
For whatever reason, my setup is not stable when 400-some-odd students are trying to access it all at the same time. I've tried reinstalling, proofing my questions, etc, and nothing seems to work. It's a bad introduction to the college when one of your first interactions as a student is trying to take a placement test that is not accessible. (The test hangs, and in the thick of things, I end up having to reboot the server once a day or so.)
So I'm interested in if anyone knows of any cheap solutions for setting up a mathematics placement test. Here are the parameters:
1. the test needs to serve between 400 and 500 students, who need to be able to access the test online, from a variety of browsers, with the ability to correlate the scores on the test to the student. I need to be able to download the results and do some processing to be able to send the results to the faculty.
2. Ideally, we would be able to have two parts of the test (14 questions each) (this is analogous to the current setup, and I'd rather retain the current set of questions this year).
3. My current set of questions are all multiple choice or multiple response. Some have graphics. But I'm not using any actual mathematics capability to grade the questions.
4. Cheap is good. The current setup is free (except for my time and aggravation), and I don't get the sense that there is any support for spending money on the project when there is a solution that "works". (Not really, but...) So Maple TA or something like that, which wants to charge $8/student, is out.
5. I need to be able to get this up and rolling by the first of May.
6. I have access to a server and to students who can help me install stuff. The server is currently running Linux Red Hat 8, I think. (I use a mac, in general.)
Thanks!
I'm in charge of organizing/administering the placement test for mathematics at the small liberal arts college where I work. For the last 5 years or so, we have used AiM Assessment in Mathematics as the back-end of our placement system. This setup uses Maple as the "brains" of a system that serves up browser-based multiple choice questions (at least for the placement test implementation part of things).
For whatever reason, my setup is not stable when 400-some-odd students are trying to access it all at the same time. I've tried reinstalling, proofing my questions, etc, and nothing seems to work. It's a bad introduction to the college when one of your first interactions as a student is trying to take a placement test that is not accessible. (The test hangs, and in the thick of things, I end up having to reboot the server once a day or so.)
So I'm interested in if anyone knows of any cheap solutions for setting up a mathematics placement test. Here are the parameters:
1. the test needs to serve between 400 and 500 students, who need to be able to access the test online, from a variety of browsers, with the ability to correlate the scores on the test to the student. I need to be able to download the results and do some processing to be able to send the results to the faculty.
2. Ideally, we would be able to have two parts of the test (14 questions each) (this is analogous to the current setup, and I'd rather retain the current set of questions this year).
3. My current set of questions are all multiple choice or multiple response. Some have graphics. But I'm not using any actual mathematics capability to grade the questions.
4. Cheap is good. The current setup is free (except for my time and aggravation), and I don't get the sense that there is any support for spending money on the project when there is a solution that "works". (Not really, but...) So Maple TA or something like that, which wants to charge $8/student, is out.
5. I need to be able to get this up and rolling by the first of May.
6. I have access to a server and to students who can help me install stuff. The server is currently running Linux Red Hat 8, I think. (I use a mac, in general.)
Thanks!
My community college uses Compass by ACT. I don't know how cheap it is but the results are very accurate.
posted by guniang at 3:50 PM on November 22, 2008
posted by guniang at 3:50 PM on November 22, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ssg at 10:39 AM on March 4, 2008