IMathAS

Version: 1.2. See Change Log for detailed change history.

What is IMathAS

IMathAS is an Internet Mathematics Assessment System. In essence, it is a very light Course Management System (CMS), most similar to (and inspired by) WebWork and WIMS, and similar to publisher-produced systems like iLrn, MathXL, etc.

IMathAS was written by David Lippman (c) 2006, and is distributed under the GPL. See the license.txt file distributed with IMathAS for more details and credits for components attributed to others.

Features

IMathAS was built on three primary philosophies:

• Math: The system was designed for Math assessment; no effort was made for the system to be multi-purpose.
• Sharing: The system was setup to encourage sharing of questions within a system and outside. Questions are grouped into question libraries, and are not tied directly to a specific assessment. Unless marked Private, questions can be used by anyone on the system, or used as a template for writing new questions. Assessments and course setups can be copied between users with permission. Export and Import allows the sharing of question sets between systems. Also, macro libraries allow for the expansion of IMathAS's question language. Users with expertise in a field can develop macro extensions, and share them with other users.
• Ease of Install: The system uses standard PHP and MySQL. It requires no special compilation options or installation of external programs.

Core Features include:

• Display:
• Rich Math and Graph display, using standards-based MathML and SVG, powered by Peter Jipsen's ASCIIsvg and ASCIIMathML, or using image fallbacks
• Rich Text Editor with built-in Math and Graph support for text items displayed in a course and forum posts
• Alternate display options for screenreaders and browsers without needed support
• Assessment:
• Question types including:
• Functions, with answers like "sin(x)"
• Numbers, compared to a given tolerance
• Calculated Numbers, like 5/3 or 2^5
• Multiple-Choice
• Multiple-Answer
• Matching
• String
• Essay (not computer graded)
• Numerical Matrix
• Calculated Matrix
• Multipart
• Multiple display options and assessment settings, including an option for practice sets, and due date exceptions for individual students
• Algorithmically generated questions, with a relatively simple-to-use question language (loosely based on PHP) with many built-in randomizers and display macros
• Group assessments
• Expandable question language, by installing additional macros
• Other Course Features
• Post text items, uploaded files, or web links to the classroom
• Basic Discussion Forums
• Administration:
• Flexible administration: IMathAS can be centrally administered, or teachers can be given rights to create their own courses
• Teachers can be grouped by school or other division, with one or more group administrators
• Courses can have one or more teachers

Details

Why a new system

You may be wondering why another system, when excellent systems already exist, or why this wasn't designed as a BlackBoard Building Block or Moodle Module. The answers are actually pretty simple, and based on pure practicality.

For my purposes, WebWork and WIMS were too difficult to install (since I don't have direct access to my school's webserver).

I didn't write it as a Moodle Module because my school doesn't have Moodle installed. I didn't write it as a BlackBoard Building Block because my school doesn't have the Enterprise version of BlackBoard. Certainly IMathAS could be integrated with Moodle or BlackBoard, and I encourage anyone with a development server and the know-how to take it on.

Installation

1. Download IMathAS, unzip it, and copy the directory to your webserver
2. Change permissions (chmod) of the following directories to allow the webserver process to write to the directories:
• assessment/libs
• assessment/qimages
• admin/import
• course/files
• filter/graph/imgs
3. Rename (in the main directory):
   • config.php.dist to config.php
   • infoheader.php.dist to infoheader.php
   • loginpage.php.dist to loginpage.php
   • newinstructor.php.dist to newinstructor.php
4. Edit config.php. Change these options to your liking:
• $dbserver: The address of your database server. Probably www.yoursite.edu or localhost
• $dbname: The name of the IMathAS database
• $dbusername: The username of the IMathAS database user.
• $dbpassword: The password for the IMathAS database user. Choose something really complicated
• $installname: The name of your installation, for personalization.
• $longloginprompt: How you want to prompt new students for a username
• $loginprompt: How you want to prompt students for a username
• $loginformat: Enforce a format requirement on the username
• $emailconfirmation: If set to true, new users will have to respond to an email sent by the system before being able to enroll in any classes
• $sendfrom: An email address to send confirmation emails from.
• $imasroot: The web root of the imathas install (ie, http://yoursite.edu $imasroot)
• $mathimgurl: An absolute path or full url to a Mimetex CGI installation, for math image fallback
• $freetypeinstalled: Whether the FreeType extension is installed and GD 2.0+ is used in your php version.
• $colorshift: Whether icons should change colors as due date approaches. I thought this was cute, but others might find it annoying
• $smallheaderlogo: Text or an HTML image tag for a small (120 x 80) logo to display at the top right of course pages
• $allownongrouplibs: Whether non-admins should be allowed to create non-group libraries. On a single-school install, set to true; for larger installs that plan to use the Groups features, set to false
• $allowcourseimport: Whether anyone should be able to import/export questions and libraries from the course page. Intended for easy sharing between systems, but the course page is cleaner if turned off.
• $allowmacroinstall: Whether admins should be able to install macro files. Macros files hold a large security risk, and should only be installed from trusted sources. For a single-admin system, it is recommended that you leave this as false, and change it when you need to install a macro
• $sessionpath: change the session file path different than the default. This is usually not necessary unless your site is on a server farm, or you're on a shared server and want more security of session data
5. Run the dbsetup.php script (access http://yoursite.edu $imasroot/dbsetup.php), or send it to your system administrator and ask them to run it, if you don't have creation access to the database server. Alternatively, have your system administrator create a database and database user, and use these names in the config.php file before running dbsetup.php. This script sets up the necessary database user, database, and tables for IMathAS.
6. Delete the dbsetup.php script, or store it somewhere not on the webserver
7. Log into IMathAS. Access http://yourside.edu $imasroot. If you didn't change the initial imathas user settings when running dbsetup.php, log in as 'root' with password 'root'. If you did not change the inital imathas user settings, click the "Change Password" link now to change the password to something substantial. Alternatively, you can go into the Admin page, create a new user with Admin rights, then delete the 'root' admin.
8. Edit loginpage.php and infoheader.php if desired.
9. If you plan to use the new instructor account request page, edit newinstructor.php

Answers to IT's questions

Versions

CPU Use

A standard student session consisting of completing a 10 question assessment with a few reattempts then checking the gradebook will use about 2 cpu seconds total.

Security

IMathAS uses a standard databased-stored sessions-based system. Only the userid is stored in the session cookie; rights are always looked up from the database. If a user does not log out, the session is cleared from database after 24 hours.

Questions (written by teachers) are passed through an interpreter that only allows authorized functions to be used. Student answers are evaluated client-side using JavaScript, and are never evaled server-side.

Macro Libraries (PHP function libraries that can be used in writing questions) can only be installed by full Admins in IMathAS. The option allowing install can be disabled in the config.php file

All user input stored in the database is passed through add_slashes (or magic_quotes is used, if enabled) to prevent SQL injection attacks