A Web-Based Intelligent Mathematical Assessment System

Nowadays Web-based mathematics education system has been widely used in order to accelerate the rapid development of Web-based mathematics education. A Web-based intelligent mathematical assessment system is a part of education system which is extremely useful to assess the ability of students. In the past ten years many research institutes and companies have developed a lot of computer aided assessment systems. However some primary problems have not been sovled ideally in these systems, such as automatic generation of questions, well display of mathematics content, intelligent answers checking. Therefore, we believe that development of an intelligent mathematical questions assessment system is essential and has strong practical significance.In this paper, we discuss some recent developments in mathematical computer aided assessment which employs computer algebra to evaluate students' work using the internet. Based on the study of existing mathematical aided system, we designed and developed a modern intelligent Web-based mathematics assessment system MathPASS. MathPASS is a pratical system which has been applied in some schools in USA. MathPASS can generate random mathematical test question with pre-defined question type, let users enter their answer both in WYSIWYG GUI interface and in infix-based character-string input environment, and check the user's answer with an assistant of computer algebra system. The paper mainly focused on three research topics in the intelligent mathematical assessment system: answer input methods, generating of random question, and answer checking.The paper discusses the design methods and principles of mathematical questions based on the prototype of test question. Two examples are introduced detailedly to illustrate how to define the value scopes of different parameters and how to set conditions of the prototype of question. We also address a CAS-based (Computer Algebra System) intelligent answer checking methods and give the specific steps of answers checking and the implementation of programme in the paper. The Standard Infix Format is a linear string-based text input methods. In the paper we give the syntax rules of Standard Infix Format and analyze the problems of Standard Infix Format for students entering answer. Based on analytical result we propose an Extended Standard Infix Format which is more suitable for the elementary mathematics.