Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis

Studies

STACK

A System for Teaching and Assessment using a Computer algebra Kernel

STACK is an open-source e-learning system for mathematical subjects. It is capable of testing the student's answer in various ways and is thus capable of grading open questions such as "Give an example of an odd function". It is also able to classify the answer into classes defined by the question author and can, therefore, give very specific feedback if the student makes common mistakes. STACK gives instant feedback which is a feature the students seem to appreciate. Typically, STACK questions are parametric, i.e., different students get different question variants with somewhat different numbers or functions.

The Department of Mathematics ( now department of mathematics and systems analysis ) at Aalto has been using STACK in basic teaching since 2007, and has developed its own adaptations of the system during that time. Most of those adaptations have been or are being merged to the master branch of STACK.

Currently the department of mathematics and systems analysis is using the Abacus branch of STACK. The Abacus branch includes some modifications made by the department that have yet to be merged with the master branch. Abacus branch STACK is in use in the following project/environments among others:

  • MyCourses (Aalto university's own Moodle-environment)
  • OpenLearning (Aalto university's Moodle-environment for MOOCs)
  • Abacus project (a question bank and a development environment for STACK questions)

Read more about the Abacus project on the page Projects.

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