Numbas and Randomized Assessment

At the beginning of my summer vacation, I shared the results of a project I had created to fill a need of mine to generate randomized questions. I subsequently got a link from Andrew Knauft (@aknauft) about another project called Numbas that had similar goals. The project is out of Newcastle University and the team is quite interested in getting more use and feedback on the site.

You can find out more at http://www.numbas.org.uk/. The actual question editor site is at https://numbas.mathcentre.ac.uk/.

I’ve used the site for a couple of weeks now for generating assessments for my students. I feel pretty comfortable saying that you should be using it too, and in place of my own QuestionBuilder solution. I’ve taken the site down and am putting time into developing my own questions on Numbas. Why am I so excited about it?

• It has all of the randomization capabilities of my site, along with robust variable browsing and grouping, conditions for variable constraints, and error management in the interface that I put on the back burner for another day. Numbas has these features right now
• LaTEX formatting is built in along with some great simplification functions for cleaning up polynomial expressions.
• Paper and online versions (including SCORM modules that work with learning management sites like Moodle) are generated right out of the box.
• It’s easy to create, share, and copy questions that others have created and adapt them to your own uses.
• Visualization libraries, including Geogebra and Viz.js, are built in and ready to go.
• The code is open sourced and available to install locally if you want to do so.

I have never planned to be a one-person software company. I will gladly take the output of a team of creative folks that know what they are doing with code over my own pride, particularly when I am energized and focused on what my classroom activities will look like tomorrow. The site makes it easy to generate assessments that I can use with my students with a minimal amount of friction in the process.

I’ll get more into the details of how I’ve been using Numbas shortly. Check out what they’ve put together – I’m sure you’ll find a way to include it in part of your workflow this year.