Talk:GIFT format

GIFT file checks June 2010

Tim Hunt correctly pointed out if it is not broke do not fix it, so I reverted my changes. I am now checking the 24 examples given on this page by uploading them into demo.moodle.net to double check if they actually work. I use several of these GIFT formats every week and they look correct but I know from experience, mistakes can be hard to see until something does not work.

Many of the GIFT examples have been around for a long time, which does not make them the best examples. I am an American and I appreciate history. However, in any example I would like to see:

1. simple questions with obvious answers (English is being translated into other languages)
2. a more international flavor of examples and
3. culturally neutral subjects.

These are my general goals, with #1 being the most important. Of course, any example must work when actually imported into Moodle :)--Chris collman 10:36, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Chris, I agree with you regarding the content of examples. As nice as it is to learn something about American history it's a bit strange to find those examples on translated pages (see https://docs.moodle.org/de/GIFT ).

Some time ago I stumbled across a mistake regarding the cloze question type. You might want to check whether the instructions regarding GIFT format are up to date.

• Talk:Embedded Answers (Cloze) question type
• Beispiel: "Wieso? Weshalb? Warum?" - Lückentext mit Kurzantwort - If you want to borrow a German example for a change this question is derived from the German version of Sesame Street with a touch of Moodle - don't know if that counts as "culturally neutral" ;-) --Frank Ralf 13:57, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Include GIFT help here?

Would it be useful to include the GIFT Format description from the Help here? Seems like this would be a good place for this information, on the other hand having to update it 2 places might be problematic.

Hi Rudy, please feel free to copy information from the GIFT format help file. Having the information in two places can be helpful sometimes, and it's unlikely that the help file will be changed in future. --Helen Foster 15:06, 27 March 2008 (CDT)

This page is getting really messy, note to self to fix :-) --Howard Miller 06:20, 30 March 2008 (CDT)

Do these belong in M&P or Tracker?

I use the Word macro to create GIFT files and like it. Of course I have tweaked mine slightly. I wonder if each of these types should be located in M&P instead of posted in various places. Could be a single GIFT tools entry, with links to various tools in the description. Or create a GIFT Open Office Writer Tool, GIFT Word Tool, GIFT Excel Tool etc. Don't know how or where the SOP is to store these files for access in M&P. --Chris collman 06:48, 4 November 2008 (CST)

Sounds like a good idea to me. They can even be stored in the Tools area of contrib if people want them versioned.--Tim Hunt 18:42, 4 November 2008 (CST)

Hi Chris, perhaps your GIFT tools could be stored in the contrib docs en folder? If so, please send them to docs@moodle.org. --Helen Foster 01:13, 5 November 2008 (CST)

Thanks Helen, I will get round to contacting people and doing that, no time frame :) --Chris collman 10:17, 5 November 2008 (CST)

Extending

I want to extend this format to accommodate learner adaptivity per del Soldato, T. & du Boulay, B. (1995) "Implementation of Motivational Tactics in Tutoring Systems," Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 6(4): 337-78, so I have described the necessary requirements and listed some choices for extension. Which are the best choices? James Salsman 19:41, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

@ as a special character?

I would like to ask those of you with large databases of GIFT questions, whether '@' is a good choice for a new special character, or whether maybe some other character appears less frequently inside answer specifications. Other possibilities are !, $, *, and maybe ; or _. Please let me know if you can do a quick grep -c on those characters in your GIFT database for starters. Thanks! James Salsman 00:22, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Can I suggest that we have this discussion in the quiz forum: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=737. I find that a much better place to have a discussion. (Also, I don't think that many people will see comments here.)

I am confused why you want to use GIFT format for what you are doing. GIFT is really designed as a simple way for people to get questions into Moodle by hand-writing files. It is not the only format. I would have thought that Moodle XML format would be much easier to extend in a clean and backwards compatible way.--Tim Hunt 10:32, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I asked at http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=143213 -- The simplicity of GIFT is essential to the foundation of a volunteer commons of croudsourced review-based assessment content for free form study. If it turns out there are too many of all the possible characters, we can use something like '@@' instead, so it is still possible to be fully backwards-compatible. We should also specify that any instance of '@' not followed by a recognized keyword is to be treated as if it were not a special character. I understand that may increase the complexity of the parser, but not by much. James Salsman 14:15, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Multiple answers

Is this allowed as a two-answer multiple answer (checkboxes, not radio buttons) question?

What two people are in Grant's tomb? {~nobody =Grant =Grant's wife ~Grant's father}

The last page of http://buypct.com/gift_reference.pdf shows an approach with considerably more complexity which I hope can be avoided in a compatible way. James Salsman 17:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Comments allowed following other material on a line? Escapable?

Where exactly are comments allowed, and can they be escaped; e.g.

::Qa:: Does this question have a syntax error? // is this first comment allowed here?
{ ?yes ?no } \// how about this second one -- a comment, the next question, or something else?

A. Are comments allowed inside answer specifications?

B. Are comments allowed following other text on the line?

C. Can // appear in question text if it is escaped as \//? James Salsman 19:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Where does the name GIFT come from?

Is GIFT an acronym? James Salsman 19:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)