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Re: [TeXmacs] texmacs databases ?


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  • From: "El.Douwen" <address@hidden>
  • To: address@hidden
  • Subject: Re: [TeXmacs] texmacs databases ?
  • Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 21:24:09 +0200
  • Authentication-results: spamcheck-ng1.citic74.net; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.i=@gmail.com; dkim-asp=none
i like this kind of problematic

i think the question is : is there a non empty intersection between : 
* the set J = what Julien needs to do his own database
and
* the set D = the great purpose of the whole texmacs team to realize the best database of maths exercises in the world, after having contibuted to the best maths text editor in the world..

i do believe that the possibility to integrate some tm exercise files in some great tm templates files is good for J, because that's what Julien asks for.
on the other side, a collaborative work to realize a database of exercises is for D, the questions of integrations, templates etc being relevant only when people have given some material for the database.
finally i start thinking the intersection is empty for the moment. In a certain future there can be connexions between our gobal database and individual databases. But not now.
I have no idea for J, but a lot for D...

ideas for D :

- we should constitute a database of exercises
i suggest to make a non international database (just a french one for this example) and more precisely : one database for high school (lycées) one other for sup (L1 L2).
my reflexion deals mostly with highschool because i have no experience of teaching sups.
the characteristics of one exercise are : 
° lenght (we must estimate a time in minutes... for example a french baccalauréat subjet is estimated as 4 hours... deciding stadards is possible)
° level (must be large and approximative : some exercices can be both for terminales and premières (bac and bac-1), some othe exercises can be one level today, and one lower or higher tomorrow if the programs change...)
° thematic (complex numbers, statistics, analysis... we can classify in high school in something like 15 thematics). Some exercises may have several thematics
° type (exercise for discovering a notion, official exam subject, exercise of direct application, exercise for reflexion, exercise with concrete approach,...)
° finition (draft, ready to print, with/without correction...) it is important to let the possibility to some users to enter some drafts because it gives more flexibility to the database.

this is really theoritical : a lot of these variables has to be simplifyed if we dont want to drown before having started.

- there are two possibilities :
one texmacs file = one type of exercises (a "type" is a panel of exercises that have approximatively the same length, finition, type, level and thematic).
one texmacs file = one exercise
the first possibility makes really easier to look for an exercise. It makes thought hardier the possiblity of direct integration of exercises in a texmacs document using "insert a document"

- i think every new exercise has to get a number that will never change and just depend of the date when it was entered. After, each exercise may has some characteristics (that may change with future eventual modifications). The exercises must be classified into a database (something like sql ?) or it will be hard and not simple to classify them.

- each exercise should be proposed both in tm and in pdf so that people not knowing about texmacs could see the work and other people could have a quicklook without having to download first.

- the question of the possibility to edit tm files from a servor is not a relevant question for the moment i think; it is related with an other idea (wordpress texmacs, http://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/documents/vinzdrafts/enligne.fr.html)

- we just have to be 10 french teachers with the motivation for that. If we do it, then we have a very great argument to invite people to use texmacs at autumn 2012. Personaly i can not do it alone but if maybe not 10 but 5 or let say 4 people would like to...

Vincent

ps i had also written this (http://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/documents/vinzdrafts/elo_exos.fr.html) but that's longer and that says the same.

Le 31 mai 2012 à 17:35, Julien Frontisi a écrit :

Thanks a lot. 
I get the general idea of the templates but in order to adapt them, I'm beginning to realize I first need to clarify what would be better :
- each exercise in a separate file or in a unique file, or files by exam, by year, by domain (linear algebra, calculus, ODE...)?
- how to name the exercises to sort them quickly (by exam, by year, by domain...?)
- what kind of outputs I would like (prints, pdf, .tm files which would be accessible over the net...)

Maybe also get something usable by others and to which others could contribute. 
Eventually create the Ultimate Unified Math Exercise DB in the World.
(Every math exercise db I know is made of chunks of (la-)tex, pdf, MsWord, Excel, and whatnot)
-> That could actually be part of a TeXmacs website. 
-> Except that I need to add my own commentaries to the exercises, not necessary relevant to other people,
like where I got the exercise, what year I gave it to my students (some students stay in the same class two years in a row
and should not have the same exercises twice).
The more I think about it, the more ambitious and out of control my ideas get.
Therefore all ideas are welcome, before even considering the technicals.

Julien


Le 31 mai 2012 à 10:14, Sam Liddicott a écrit :

The templates I sent are a mess, but I did clean them up for you.

I'll be glad to guide and advise you on their use or make them better so that they are more suitable for you.

Please ask lots of questions, I want to make TeXmacs better for you.

Sam

On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 5:45 PM, Julien Frontisi <address@hidden> wrote:
Thanks a lot for your quick answers.
It's going to take me a while to fully understand Sam's templates  but I'll try hard.
In any case, it seems to be what I need.
Julien
 
Le 30 mai 2012 à 09:44, Sam Liddicott a écrit :


On Wed, May 30, 2012 at 4:56 AM, Aleksandr Dobkin <address@hidden> wrote:
I think there are several approaches.

1) You can put each problem in it's own TeXmacs file and include the ones you want in the master document using Insert > Link > Include... .

2) If you want to define all the problems in the same document you can do so in the preamble. If you put an assign tag in the preamble, e.g. <assign|p1|My Problem Text>, you can include in the main document as <p1>.


I do it rather like (2) but not in the pre-amble. I had to produce some documents which showed step-by-step how to configure some systems, and most of the steps were the same but took different parameters so I developed a nice way of parameterising paragaphs. See attached zip file.

There is a file: templates.ts which allows one to use:
<save-chunk|chunk-name|...>

In the document one can use <placeholder|name|default-value>.

The first time placeholder is used for a name, it defines the name to the provided default-value, otherwise it uses the defined value (which can be overridden <with|name|new-value> or <assign|name|new-value>

This way I can define blocks of document and then re-use them inside a <with|...> block to change the rendering.

So I write a document using the template.ts which makes all my definitions. I can save this document as a .ts file instead of a .tm file. I do not use the "source" style sheet.

I then use this .ts file AND the templates.ts for my new document. Then I can invoke all the pre-defined chunks as I like (with parameterisations) my document.

So in the zip file, templates-test.ts is the database.

However it is a couple of years since I wrote it and I will re-write it soon, but it is very servicable. I have trouble rememberering how to make the templateised graphics work, but you must specify the width and height explicitly!

Sam


 

Numbering you get for free by inserting Question environments, for example, using Insert > Enunciation > Question.

Alex


On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 1:02 PM, Julien Frontisi <address@hidden> wrote:
Hi,
does anyone know if there is a simple way to create exercise databases with texmacs with the possibility
to select and extract some exercises out of the lot and then automatically create a document with the chosen exercises ?
Hope that's clear.
More generally, select some items out of a collection and create a new document listing the selected items. (Besides manually copy/pasting each, of course...)
(Re-)numbering of the items would be great.
Thanks
Julien
ps : sorry for double-posting this on the texmacs-edu list and here, I'm not sure if that one is working yet (no archive available).


<templates.zip>





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