Introduction to Numbas
Christian Lawson-Perfect
Newcastle University
Plan for today
- 2 hours
- Please interrupt at any time!
- Introduce Numbas and demo
- Write a first question
- Look at advanced features
An open-source e-assessment system designed for mathematical subjects.
Developed at Newcastle University since 2011.
Used around the world.
Key features
Randomised questions.
Easy to use and accessible.
Adaptive behaviour.
Customisable everywhere.
Lots of maths features.
Runs standalone.
LTI support.
Question types
- Math notation
- Number
- Matrix
Question types
- Multiple choice
- Short text
- Make your own
Question types
- Code
- Spreadsheet
Interactive diagrams
- GeoGebra
- JSXGraph
Modes of use
- Sequential
- A fixed list of questions.
- Menu
- Student picks which questions they want to try.
- Diagnostic
- Adapts to student's performance.
- Explore
- Student picks their own path through an activity.
How we use it
- Large banks of practice material.
- In-course assessment: open for two weeks, worth 2% of module.
- Labs: students enter measurements; Numbas marks calculations.
- High-stakes assessments for many maths modules, as well as large service courses.
- Hybrid exams: some automatically marked, some marked by hand.
How to do it
- Large question-writing team.
- Think creatively about assessing hard topics.
- Check everything very thoroughly in advance.
The mathcentre editor
- Open to everyone.
- Collect ready-made questions into a custom test
- Or write your own.
Let's make this
Documentation
![The Numbas documentation](images/docs.png)
Planning a question
- What does the question assess?
- What does the student have to do?
- How might the student get the answer wrong?
- Sketch the structure of the question
- Implement the question in Numbas
- Pay attention to detail
- Think about randomisation
- Do the boring admin bits
Use projects
Organise material into folders
Use editing history to leave editing comments and set checkpoints
Write good variable descriptions
Use the "random person" extension
Create printable exams with the "printed worksheet" theme
Extensions add functionality
Custom part types allow different kinds of interaction
Thanks!
- Website
- numbas.org.uk
- numbas@ncl.ac.uk
- Fediverse
- @numbas@mathstodon.xyz
- Source code
- github.com/numbas
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