Hi there. How can I help?
The answers to the most frequent questions I got are listed below. Is your question not listed? Check the Beginners Tutorial or our Knowledge Center for more advanced help!
Student interaction
How should I author decimal numbers?
We have to select a base language for authoring, to prevent multiple interpretations of the same input. AlgebraKiT’s base language for authoring is English.
That means that for authoring it is recommended to use the English notation for a.o. numbers (point notation as decimal separator) and domains (square vs round brackets) to make sure the student behavior is correct. In the interactive student exercise, AlgebraKiT uses the audience information to translate the authored exercise to the interactive version with the correct student behavior.
We do provide support to write numbers with decimal separator to some extent, but we can’t guarantee that this results in the desired behavior at all times.
Note: in the Math Entry literal setting, you should author the input as you want the student to literally write the answer. In that situation you will always need to author the expression based on the audience.
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What is the difference between hints and feedback?
Hints are requested by the student by explicitly clicking on the hint button. Hint texts should be short, explanatory, informative texts that describe the next possible step for the student to get to the answer.
Feedback is (automatically) given to the student as a reply to input submitted by the student. Feedback texts are focussing on the input given and describing the mistake made.
More generic: hints are forward-driven, feedback is backward-driven. AlgebraKiT tries to give formative feedback where possible.
Why are my hints not working as expected?
In most circumstances, this question arises when authoring an algebra interaction with multiple steps. The reason why hints are not working as expected, is mostly because the (necessary) information to build the solution model by AlgebraKiT was not completely provided by the author.
Make sure to:
Give each step a description, also the solution step. The description of a step defines ‘what’ this step means and is used by AlgebraKiT to create the worked-out solutions and to generate hints.
Define the relation between steps. If steps relate to each other, make sure to use the step name in the task definition, or by using the precondition field of a step. By doing so, you help AlgebraKiT understand the solution strategies available and building a correct solution model.
Remove empty hints. Sometimes an empty hint field (most commonly an empty context hint) exists in the question definition, such that hint behavior is blocked.
Refer to the topic on hints for more information on hints.
Interaction settings
The symbols in my text are not shown correctly.
You have authored a question but the math in your text is not shown how you want it. This might have to do with the fact that AlgebraKiT automatically interprets the symbols and assigns a type in the back to these symbols.
For example. When authoring the following question in the question text-editor:
AlgebraKiT will interpret the km as unit, rendering this as math-text.
In this example, that is the correct interpretation, so we do not have to change anything.
However, let’s have a look at another example:
The input l is now interpreted as unit, and rendered as capital math-text L instead of the variable italic version of the lowercase l.
If you intended the rendering as a variable instead of a unit, you have to add l as a symbol variable to the Symbols tab.
Account
Where can I find the authoring environment?
The authoring environment of AlgebraKiT can be found at https://cms.algebrakit.nl/cms.
Users with a valid credentials set can login to this environment.
Note that some customers have the AlgebraKiT authoring toolkit integrated in their own content management system. In that case, contact your local support team for the answer to this question.
Randomisation
Why do I see my question 5 times?
When you have defined a script and your question does not consist of subparts, we will automatically generate 5 instances of your question and list these 5 runs in table form.
For simplicity reasons, we assume that the script is only used with randomised questions. By showing 5 instances at the same time, you can validate much quicker whether the parameters in the script are as desired.
You can play a specific instance by clicking the run button next to each of the 5 generated instances.
Issues
How do I report an issue?
For any issues, feature requests or other question specific information, authors can use the Support Tracker. If you do not have an account yet, please have your focal point contact us.
Note that some customers have the AlgebraKiT authoring toolkit integrated in their own content management system. In that case, contact your local support team for the answer to this question.