![\"Screenshot](\"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Screenshot_2021-04-27-Main-Exam-Window1.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nDevelopment on Numbas began in September 2009, and once it was ready to use I made it a priority to make sure it was released under an open-source licence so it wouldn’t languish in obscurity at Newcastle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The first version, released on April 25th 2011, was a straightforward replacement for the commercial system we had been using, i-assess<\/em>. It supported mathematical expressions, number entry, all the multiple choice part types and text match. There was no web-based editor, so exams were written as plain text files and compiled using a Python script. There was already support for extensions: my demo exam had an interactive JSXGraph diagram, linked to some number inputs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t really know how best to mark this anniversary, so here’s a timeline of when some key features were added:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that brings us up to date! This year I’m working on diagnostic testing, hoping to replace the very old DIAGNOSYS system used by first-year engineering students at Newcastle with a Numbas exam. The main idea is that the questions shown to the student depend on how they’ve done so far, omitting questions on topics the student has already shown they understand, and drilling down to diagnose missing knowledge when they get something wrong. I’m looking at other models of adaptive testing, too, such as a “mastery” approach where topics are repeated until passed, item response theory, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10 years in, Numbas is firmly embedded in the curriculum at Newcastle, it’s been translated into 18 languages, and the Numbas editor at mathcentre has over 6,000 registered users from over 1,000 institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Numbas, by directly writing code or translations, by suggesting new features, by reporting bugs, and just by using the system. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week marks ten years since we first released Numbas as open-source software. Here’s what it looked like back then: Development on Numbas began in September 2009, and once it was ready to use I made it a priority to make sure it was released under an open-source licence so it wouldn’t languish in obscurity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1660,"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions\/1660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numbas.org.uk\/theme-testing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}except<\/code> operator and the printed worksheet theme, thanks to suggestions from Peter Rowlett following his PhD research<\/a>.<\/li>