Aims: This study aims at designing and implementing syllabus-oriented question-bank system that is capable of producing paper-based exams with multiple forms along with answer keys. The developed software tool is nam...Aims: This study aims at designing and implementing syllabus-oriented question-bank system that is capable of producing paper-based exams with multiple forms along with answer keys. The developed software tool is named Χ(Chi)-Pro Milestone and supports four types of questions, namely: Multiple-choice, True/False, Short-Answer and Free-Response Essay questions. The study is motivated by the fact that student number in schools and universities is continuously growing at high, non-linear, and uncontrolled rates. This growth, however, is not accompanied by an equivalent growth of educational resources (mainly: instructors, classrooms, and labs). A direct result of this situation is having relatively large number of students in each classroom. It is observed that providing and using online-examining systems could be intractable and expensive. As an alternative, paper-based exams can be used. One main issue is that manually produced paper-based exams are of low quality because of some human factors such as instability and relatively narrow range of topics [1]. Further, it is observed that instructors usually need to spend a lot of time and energy in composing paper-based exams with multiple forms. Therefore, the use of computers for automatic production of paper-based exams from question banks is becoming more and more important. Methodology: The design and evaluation of X-Pro Milestone are done by considering a basic set of design principles that are based on a list of identified Functional and Non-Functional Requirements. Deriving those requirements is made possible by developing X-Pro Milestone using the Iterative and Incremental model from software engineering domain. Results: We demonstrate that X-Pro Milestone has a number of excellent characteristics compared to the exam-preparation and question banks tools available in market. Some of these characteristics are: ease of use and operation, user-friendly interface and good usability, high security and protection of the question bank-items, high stability, and reliability. Further, X-Pro Milestone makes initiating, maintaining and archiving Question-Banks and produced exams possible. Putting X-Pro Milestone into real use has showed that X-Pro Milestone is easy to be learned and effectively used. We demonstrate that X-Pro Milestone is a cost-effective alternative to online examining systems with more and richer features and with low infrastructure requirements.展开更多
This paper mainly discusses the problems of fractional variational problems and fractional diffusion problems using fractional difference and summation. Through the Euler finite difference method we get a variational ...This paper mainly discusses the problems of fractional variational problems and fractional diffusion problems using fractional difference and summation. Through the Euler finite difference method we get a variational formulation of the variation problem and the discrete solution to the time-fractional and space-fractional difference equation using separating variables method and two-side Z-transform method.展开更多
文摘Aims: This study aims at designing and implementing syllabus-oriented question-bank system that is capable of producing paper-based exams with multiple forms along with answer keys. The developed software tool is named Χ(Chi)-Pro Milestone and supports four types of questions, namely: Multiple-choice, True/False, Short-Answer and Free-Response Essay questions. The study is motivated by the fact that student number in schools and universities is continuously growing at high, non-linear, and uncontrolled rates. This growth, however, is not accompanied by an equivalent growth of educational resources (mainly: instructors, classrooms, and labs). A direct result of this situation is having relatively large number of students in each classroom. It is observed that providing and using online-examining systems could be intractable and expensive. As an alternative, paper-based exams can be used. One main issue is that manually produced paper-based exams are of low quality because of some human factors such as instability and relatively narrow range of topics [1]. Further, it is observed that instructors usually need to spend a lot of time and energy in composing paper-based exams with multiple forms. Therefore, the use of computers for automatic production of paper-based exams from question banks is becoming more and more important. Methodology: The design and evaluation of X-Pro Milestone are done by considering a basic set of design principles that are based on a list of identified Functional and Non-Functional Requirements. Deriving those requirements is made possible by developing X-Pro Milestone using the Iterative and Incremental model from software engineering domain. Results: We demonstrate that X-Pro Milestone has a number of excellent characteristics compared to the exam-preparation and question banks tools available in market. Some of these characteristics are: ease of use and operation, user-friendly interface and good usability, high security and protection of the question bank-items, high stability, and reliability. Further, X-Pro Milestone makes initiating, maintaining and archiving Question-Banks and produced exams possible. Putting X-Pro Milestone into real use has showed that X-Pro Milestone is easy to be learned and effectively used. We demonstrate that X-Pro Milestone is a cost-effective alternative to online examining systems with more and richer features and with low infrastructure requirements.
文摘This paper mainly discusses the problems of fractional variational problems and fractional diffusion problems using fractional difference and summation. Through the Euler finite difference method we get a variational formulation of the variation problem and the discrete solution to the time-fractional and space-fractional difference equation using separating variables method and two-side Z-transform method.
