[Building Sakai] Skin Selector in Test and Quizzes

Fri Jun 7 13:25:26 PDT 2013

Keli,

The main reason I hear from instructors about why they want to use MathJax
vs. images is that the equations can easily be modified once created.
After an instructor creates a complicated equation in an image based
equation editor and discovers a mistake, he/she needs to re-create the
equation to fix it.  In Latex they just edit the code and the fix is done.

Thank you,

Louis

On 6/7/13 11:09 AM, "Keli Sato Amann" <kamann at stanford.edu> wrote:

>For those who are or thinking of using MathJax, is there a particular
>reason why you think this is better than preserving math as images?
>
>We were thinking about getting this started this summer on supporting
>math equations, and was talking with our developers about MathJax but I
>didn't know about fMath plugin possibility. I was planning to do some
>investigation into advantages and disadvantages of each (including user
>experience), but if anyone has any thoughts I'd appreciate hearing them.
>
>Keli Amann
>User Experience Specialist
>Academic Computing Services, Stanford University.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Philip Contractor McCullick, GDIT" <pcmccull at nps.edu>
>To: "Paul Lukasewych" <plukasew at uwo.ca>
>Cc: sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
>Sent: Monday, June 3, 2013 9:18:49 AM
>Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] Skin Selector in Test and Quizzes
>
>
>
>
>
>We limited it to the Test & Quizzes because we had scripts that
>instructors could add for other pages. The Test & Quizzes was stripping
>out our scripts from the instructor input boxes. We preferred added the
>scripts to only the pages that needed it, because the MathJax processing
>is fairly heavy and was rarely needed.
>
>
>
>Thanks, 
>
>Phil 
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>
>Philip McCullick, Media Development Manager
>
>General Dynamics Information Technology
>
>Supporting the Center for Educational Design, Development, and
>Distribution (CED3)
>
>Naval Postgraduate School
>
>(831) 656-2443 
>
>Description: Description: Description: CED3_Logo_Master_eMail
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: Paul Lukasewych [mailto:plukasew at uwo.ca]
>Sent: Monday, June 03, 2013 8:43 AM
>To: McCullick, Philip Contractor, GDIT
>Cc: sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org
>Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] Skin Selector in Test and Quizzes
>
>
>
>Thanks Phil, this should be helpful. Is there a particular reason why you
>limited it to just Tests & Quizzes? I can see Mathjax being useful in
>other tools as well.
>
>
>
>
>
>Paul Lukasewych 
>
>Applications Development Team
>
>Information Technology Services
>
>Support Services Building
>
>Western University
>
>(519) 661-2111 x80513
>
>plukasew at uwo.ca 
>
>
>
>On June 3, 2013 15:29:12 McCullick, Philip Contractor, GDIT wrote:
>
>Hi Paul, 
>
>
>
>For the math skin, we used the portal.xslt file to include MathJax only
>on the Tests & Quizzes pages. The Sakai headscripts.js makes an optional
>call to postIframeResize() if the method exists in the parent. So we used
>that callback to put the MathJax script into the quiz iframe each time it
>loads a page. It does have to scan the entire page for Latex tokens, so
>only classes that use a lot of complex Math use this skin.
>
>
>
>The area we changed in the portal.xslt is inside of
>
><xsl:template name="tool">
>
>Š 
>
><div class="portletMainWrap">
>
><xsl:choose> 
>
>Š 
>
></ xsl:choose> 
>
>The following xslt/JavaScript code was put here.
>
>
>
>Here is the code we added:
>
><!‹ Check for the Test & Quizzes tool -->
>
><xsl:if test="contains($tool/toolHelp, 'samigo')">
>
><!‹ Add a hidden input for the mainframe's id so scripts can point at it
>--> 
>
><input type="hidden" id="mainFrameId">
>
><xsl:attribute name="value">
>
><xsl:value-of select="$tool/escapedId"/>
>
></xsl:attribute> 
>
></input> 
>
>
>
><script type="text/javascript">
>
>// <![CDATA[ 
>
>var mainFrameID = document.getElementById("mainFrameId").value;
>
>var mathJaxLocation = "/library/js";
>
>
>
>//headscripts.js calls the postIframeResize method after resizing
>finishes 
>
>function postIframeResize() {
>
>var script = 
>document.getElementById(mainFrameID).contentWindow.document.createElement(
>"script"); 
>
>script.type = "text/javascript";
>
>script.src = mathJaxLocation + "/MathJax/MathJax.js?config=default"; //
>use the location of your MathJax folder
>
>var config = 'MathJax.Hub.Startup.onload();';
>
>
>
>if (window.opera) {
>
>script.innerHTML = config;
>
>} else { 
>
>script.text = config;
>
>} 
>
>document.getElementById(mainFrameID).contentWindow.document.getElementsByT
>agName("head")[0].appendChild(script);
>
>} 
>
>//]]> 
>
>
>
></script> 
>
></xsl:if> 
>
>
>
>
>
>Hope that helps, 
>
>Phil 
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>
>Philip McCullick, Media Development Manager
>
>General Dynamics Information Technology
>
>Supporting the Center for Educational Design, Development, and
>Distribution (CED3)
>
>Naval Postgraduate School
>
>(831) 656-2443 
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>From: sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org [
>mailto:sakai-dev-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org ] On Behalf Of Paul
>Lukasewych 
>Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 7:45 AM
>To: sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org ; Help Desk
>Subject: Re: [Building Sakai] Skin Selector in Test and Quizzes
>
>
>
>I'm interested in the NPS Mathjax solution, so if anyone from NPS can
>provide more details that would be great.
>
>
>
>Paul Lukasewych 
>
>Applications Development Team
>
>Information Technology Services
>
>Support Services Building
>
>Western University
>
>(519) 661-2111 x80513
>
>plukasew at uwo.ca 
>
>
>
>On May 31, 2013 10:32:51 Matthew Jones wrote:
>
>In 2.9 (or 2.8 if you enable manually add it to CKEditor and upgrade
>textarea) there is support for for the fMath plugin (SAK-23266) which
>allows a user to import a latex file or latex plain text. This would
>probably be the easiest for instructors.
>
>
>
>And I agree with Steve, most likely that specific local skin does
>something special to load up mathjax only for those sites that manually
>enable it. We didn't ever add Mathjax system wide because by default it
>has to either parse everything (which slows down the browsing experience)
>or has to parse specific div classes (which instructors wouldn't know
>about and nobody ever wrote a WYSIWYG editor plugin for).
>
>
>
>On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 10:15 AM, Steve Swinsburg <
>steve.swinsburg at gmail.com > wrote:
>
>Hi Paul, 
>
>
>
>The Skin selector tool is here:
>
>https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/edia/skin-manager/
>
>
>
>Though I dont think you need that for what you want, that document is
>specific to NPS and presumably the naval_math skin has the config for the
>math editor. So what you really want is to install the math editor.
>
>
>
>cheers, 
>
>Steve 
>
>
>
>On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 8:49 PM, Paul Wando Mungai < paulwando at gmail.com
>> wrote: 
>
>Hi All, 
>
>
>
>We are trying to incorporate the Skin Selector into the Tests and Quizzes
>so that users can use Latex Math equations. We found this document that
>outlines the steps to accomplish this:
>
>
>
>http://faculty.nps.edu/dl/tools/math_tool/MathTool_tutorial.pdf
>
>
>
>However, we cannot find the tool source code, or configuration steps for
>this. 
>
>-- 
>Regards, 
>Paul Mungai 
>
>"Ability is what youre capable of doing. Motivation determines what you
>do. Attitude determines how well you do it" By Lou Holtz, Notre Dame
>Football Coach 
>
>
>
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