Problem Builder and Step Builder

This repository provides two XBlocks: Problem Builder and Step Builder.

Both blocks allow to create questions of various types. They can be used to simulate the workflow of real-life mentoring, within an edX course.

Supported features include:

• Free-form answers (textarea) which can be shared accross different XBlock instances (for example, to allow a student to review and edit an answer they gave before).
• Self-assessment MCQs (multiple choice questions), to display predetermined feedback to a student based on his choices in the self-assessment. Supports rating scales and arbitrary answers.
• MRQs (Multiple Response Questions), a type of multiple choice question that allows the student to select more than one choice.
• Answer recaps that display a read-only summary of a user's answer to a free-form question asked earlier in the course.
• Progression tracking, to require that the student has completed a particular step before allowing them to complete the next step. Provides a link to the next step to the student.
• Tables, which allow to present answers from the student to free-form answers in a concise way. Supports custom headers.
• Dashboards, for displaying a summary of the student's answers to multiple choice questions. Details

The following screenshot shows an example of a Problem Builder block containing a free-form question, two MCQs and one MRQ:

Installation

Install the requirements into the Python virtual environment of your edx-platform installation by running the following command from the root folder:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

See Usage Instructions

Workbench installation and settings

Install to the workbench's virtualenv by running the following command from the problem builder repo root:

pip install -r requirements.txt

In the main XBlock repository, create the following configuration file in workbench/settings_pb.py in the XBlock repository:

from settings import *

INSTALLED_APPS += ('problem_builder',)
DATABASES['default']['NAME'] = 'workbench.sqlite'

Because this XBlock uses a Django model, you need to sync the database before starting the workbench. Run this from the XBlock repository root:

$ ./manage.py syncdb --settings=workbench.settings_pb

Running the workbench

$ ./manage.py runserver 8000 --settings=workbench.settings_pb

Access it at http://localhost:8000/.

Running tests

First, make sure the XBlock SDK (Workbench) is installed in the same virtual environment as xblock-problem-builder.

From the xblock-problem-builder repository root, run the tests with the following command:

$ ./run_tests.py

If you want to run only the integration or the unit tests, append the directory to the command. You can also run separate modules in this manner.

$ ./run_tests.py problem_builder/tests/unit

Extracting Translatable Strings

To extract/update strings for translation, you will need i18n_tools:

pip install git+https://github.com/edx/i18n-tools.git#egg=i18n_tools

To extract strings, use i18n_tool extract. To build a dummy translation for testing, use:

i18n_tool dummy && i18n_tool generate

Adding custom scenarios to the workbench

Within the xblock-problem-builder repository, create the templates/xml and add XML scenarios to it - all files with the *.xml extension will be automatically loaded by the workbench:

$ mkdir templates/xml
$ cat > templates/xml/my_pb_scenario.xml

Restart the workbench to take the new scenarios into account.

Upgrading from Version 1

To upgrade a course from xblock-mentoring ("v1") to xblock-problem-builder ("v2"), run the following command on a system with edx-platform, xblock-mentoring, and xblock-problem-builder installed:

$ SERVICE_VARIANT=cms DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE="cms.envs.devstack" python -m problem_builder.v1.upgrade "Org/Course/Run"

Where "Org/Course/Run" is replaced with the ID of the course to upgrade.

License

This XBlock is available under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3).