LON-CAPA Help

Any resource can potentially be linked to any other, making it possible to provide a non-linear learning experience. Once a few resources have been added to a sequence in the advanced editor, links can be added by simply clicking on a resource, using the "Link Resource" link, and clicking on another resource. The map display will update to take into account the new link. By default, all links out of a resource will be suggested to students switching to the next resource in the sequence, but it is possible to reduce the options with conditions.

A condition for a link can be added by clicking on a link near a resource (in a colored area) and typing the condition in the pop-up. Conditions are using the Perl syntax, and are evaluated as booleans. Three different outcomes are possible for a given condition:

• Recommendation if true: displays the link only if the condition is true

• Blocking this link if false: hides the link if the condition is false

• Blocking other links if true: hides the other links if the condition is true

The &EXT function is used to get user data. It takes 2 parameters: one to specify the problem part and requested data, and one to specify the sequence resource. Resources in the sequence have to be named before being used with &EXT. This is done by adding a mapalias parameter to the resource. To do that, click on a resource, click the Set Parameters link, change the value for the parameter_part_mapalias field, click on the Set checkbox, then click on the Set button.

Here is an example:
&EXT('user.resource.resource.0.tries','test') > 2
This condition will be true if the user has more than 2 tries for the problem with a mapalias parameter set to "test", in part 0 (which is the part id used when a problem has no part).

Here are some &EXT parameters that are particularly useful for advanced sequences:

• awarded: " or a floating point number between 0 and 1 inclusive, that is the percentage of the weight for this problem

• solved: status of the problem, 1 if the answer was correct, can also be one of the following strings: 'correct_by_student', 'correct_by_scantron', 'credit_attempted', 'incorrect_attempted', 'ungraded_attempted', and the empty string "

• tries: number of tries used

• award: detailed award determined by how the most recently graded part was graded; possible values:
  'EXACT_ANS', 'APPROX_ANS', 'NO_RESPONSE', 'EXTRA_ANSWER',
  'MISSING_ANSWER', 'WRONG_NUMBOXESCHECKED', 'ERROR',
  'TOO_LONG', 'WANTED_NUMERIC', 'MISORDERED_RANK',
  'EXCESS_FILESIZE', 'FILENAME_INUSE', 'INVALID_FILETYPE',
  'SIG_FAIL', 'UNIT_INVALID_INSTRUCTOR', 'UNIT_INVALID_STUDENT',
  'UNIT_FAIL', 'UNIT_IRRECONCIBLE', 'UNIT_NOTNEEDED',
  'NO_UNIT', 'COMMA_FAIL', 'BAD_FORMULA', 'NOT_FUNCTION',
  'WRONG_FORMAT', 'INTERNAL_ERROR', 'INCORRECT', 'SUBMITTED',
  'SUBMITTED_CREDIT', 'ANONYMOUS', 'ANONYMOUS_CREDIT', 'DRAFT',
  'ASSIGNED_SCORE', "

• status (for bridge task): one of the strings: 'review', 'ungraded', 'fail', 'pass'