Chemistry Online Homework System Part 2

A few people requested a bit more information on the chemistry online homework system, which I introduced in my last post, so here goes. The system in known as JExam. It has the capability to administer both homework assignments and tests. The system is capable of asking students multiple choice, multiple answer, and fill in the blank type questions. The fill in the blank questions can be either numeric or text in nature. The system also has the ability to using basic word processing type drawing tools to allow students "draw" chemical structures, but this feature is still very early in its development.

The students are loaded into the system at the beginning of the term, and they are provided with a link to download the homework taking software. Each week students receive and complete one new homework assignment. In place of a homework assignment students receive a practice test the week before each exam. Students have to come to the chemistry building take their course exams, so that we can regulate the materials that they can use on the test. Students sign-up for a test time the week before the schedule test. Tests are administered in the chemistry computer lab over a 3 to 5 day period depending on the number of students in the course. No class time is used to administer tests.

I mentioned in my last post that like any form of evolving technology the system has bugs. One of the current problems we face is being able to create new questions, but not delete old questions, which through research we have concluded do not test their intended skill set. It turns out this bug is rooted in the initial poor design of the database that JExam uses. We have a programmer working on a new database design, but he has had to push that project to back burner a number of times to deal with security issues with the program that are more pressing. Since all of the students grades are stored in the system as new threats, in terms of hacking, viruses, and the like, become know he must deal with those issues first. In ideal world we would have an unlimited sum of money to pay a large team of programmers to fix all the problems, but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.