Our model

Before we became familiar with the OKI model, we generated the following model which has some features we need:

• course section. A section has a parent offering, a schedule, an instructor, and a roster. It involves a sequence of instructional activities, e.g., lectures, readings, tests, recitation, homework assignments, lab exercises, etc. An activity:
  • may be proctored or take-home (a.k.a. homework)
  • may or may not be graded,
  • may or may not carry weight toward some portion of the grade.
• each lecture section carries a grade of the parent offering's grade type.
• people (``agents'' in OKIspeak) act in various roles relative to sections: enrollee, instructor, TA, grader.
• each enrollee must enroll in both a lecture and a corresponding lab section. That correspondence may be many-to-many, i.e., each lab section may correspond to many lectures and vice versa.
• assignments including tests and surveys (``assessments'' in OKIspeak) are broken down into problems, a.k.a. questions, (``items'' in OKIspeak) to which students submit responses. Usually an instructor, TA, or grader grade and/or comment on the student's submission, i.e., provide feedback. (Problems are not only instruments of assessment of competencies but also instruments of insightful learning and of skill-building drill.)

A section has the following attributes:

• type: lecture or lab
• course number(s), including cross listings.
• section number
• term
• instructor's log (notes that include advice to future instructors)
• text(s)
• assignments (list)
• announcements (list)
• mailing list and newsgroup
• grading policy
• instructor
• TAs (list)
• graders (list)
• student work
• feedback on student work, including grades

A course has the following attributes:

• number
• name
• description (versioned)
• units
• lab?
• discussion?
• prerequisites
• problem bank(s)
• syllabus (versioned)
• objectives (vector)

A problem (``item'' in OKIspeak) has the following attributes:

• Statement
• Author(s)
• Revision history. (For instance, each time I use a question, I try to improve its clarity.^2.24)
• Solution (a.k.a. answer)
• Courses for which this problem is intended.
• Subject area
• Grading rubric for this problem. (Possibly a script, in which case, we need the version and test cases.)
• Objectives (a list of them), i.e., competencies demonstrated and or drilled.
• Drill vs. assessment
• Uses, i.e., assignments/quizzes where this problem has been used.
• Comments on this problems
• Variants, i.e., a list of related questions that are similar
• Difficulty (a.k.a., facility), i.e., mean score.
• Validity (a.k.a., discrminiation), i.e., how well do the scores on this question correlate with the competence being tested.
• Discrimination sharpness, i.e., how steeply do scores fall off with declining competence.

An assignment (``assessment'' in OKIspeak)^2.25 has the following attributes:

• title
• section (not necessary)
• posting mode (web or handout).^2.26
• when posted
• weight (e.g., optional or not)
• turn-in instructions (including lateness penalties), if any.
• when to be completed (or duration from posting)
• proctored or takehome
• problems (list)
• per-problem weights (list)

A submission (``ItemTaken'' in OKIspeak), i.e., work submitted by a student in response to a problem, has the following attributes:

• problem
• student(s) who did the work.
• when submitted?
• link to the file or directory containing that work.
• score (if any, so far).
• feedback (if any, so far), possibly an annotated copy of the work.
• grader (plus scripts and test cases).
• test cases, if any
• backreader (if any)
• backreader's comments (if any)