Support for arbitrary real-value point weights

[jeetsukumaran]

For both individual questions as well as group questions, Canvas supports arbitrary real-valued point weights (e.g., 1.63).

Could this be added to text2qti? Currently individual questions now only support integer and half-integer (e.g. 1.5), while grouped questions only support integers.

[gpoore]

I only use integer and half-integer point values myself, so the current system serves as a sort of sanity check...if a point value doesn't fit those criteria, then it's a typo. I'm open to broadening the allowed values, for example, maybe allow quarter integers everywhere. Are there use cases where point values really need to be arbitrary floats specified to the hundreds place or beyond?

[jeetsukumaran]

Hi @gpoore,

Frequently enough, though perhaps this might be attributed to poor planning administration on my part! E.g., when the an exam is worth 40 points, and for the time available (or given the topics we have managed to cover) we are going to only have 25 or 30 questions. I know there are hacks where can assign one point per question and then reweight the entire exam ... but it is more straightforward to assign total_exam_point_weight / number_of_exam_questions as the point value to a question or group (so 1.6 or 1.3333333, for e.g.).

To maintain the sanity check functionality, maybe it can be the default but with a flag (e.g., "--real-valued-points") to relax the check. Or vice versa, force the reality check which off by default by a flag?

[JeffFessler]

I am fine with integer valued points but it would help to be able to include "0" points as an option, because for practice quizzes it is it more clear to the students that it is ungraded if the points are 0.

Perhaps there could be a command-line option like -allow0 or -allowreal so that the default behavior
continues to warn for non-positive integers (or halves).

[jlgraves-ubc]

Hi all - agree with JeffFessler; zero points are frequently useful. For example, if you want them to upload a "back-up" file or something that may not actually get graded.

[JeffFessler]

If anyone (like @jlgraves-ubc) wants to just do this for themselves, simply change line 218 in quiz.py from
if points_num <= 0:
to
if points_num < 0:

I made this change to my local copy and reran the setup python setup.py install --user and now I can use 0 points just fine. Of course next time I do a git pull it will likely get reverted, which is part of the reason I am leaving this note here...

[JeffFessler]

Update: it is a good thing I left the above note for myself because sure enough I am back here trying to remember how to allow 0 point answers.
In current version (0.6.0.dev5 ?) it is now line 228:

text2qti/text2qti/quiz.py

Line 228 in de0c805

if points_num <= 0:

Still wishing it were a command-line option instead having to hack the code for every update.

[ururk]

Same here - zero point value questions would be useful for questions like "Do you agree to the honor code?". Or optional survey questions that don't need to be answered.