Foothill College |
MathCap |
"We saved almost 30 months of work and easily $50,000."
- Nilesh Deshpande of LightSpeed IT Solutions Pty Ltd
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MathCap |
Foothill College
Los Altos Hills, CA USA
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MathCap was developed by Light Speed Solutions for use at Foothill College.
MathCap allows instructors to:
| Build custom courseware from published courses.
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| Provide assignments to students with tighter control on start and end times.
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| Coordinate student assignments.
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| Track student progress.
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| Analyze student responsiveness in real time.
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| Provide feedback to students regarding their answers.
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MathCap allows students to perform their assignments from anywhere over the Web, which presented several unique development challenges to:
| Ensure two students will not be asked the same questions.
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| Ensure the student does not log onto multiple computers (e.g., practice on one machine and do the assignment on another).
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| Track the number of attempts so that students start where they left off.
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| Allow the instructor to lock down a particular class to prohibit students from working on assignments during the lecture.
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One of the most unique features of MathCap is the ability to translate a string into mathematical
representation as the student types. This allows them to visualize the solution better. As the
student types each character, the graphical representation shows the mathematical format.
Once the student logs in, they see the list of their current enrolled courses.
When students open an assignment, they see all the sections in that assignment. This screen shows
the status of each part of the assignment in terms of attempts, tries, best score, and points scored.
It also shows they have started the part, finished it, etc. The students can start their work from
where they left off with the auto save feature.
Once students open the part, questions appear based on the courseware design and students' prior
history with subject, as well as their "attempt and try" number.
All the data, including concepts and skills, examples, problem statements and answers, are defined
as fields in the database where the course administrator can make modifications.
After the student types in his answers, MathCap provides feedback based on the answer (defined
in database for various scenarios).
This application was designed from the ground up with Iron Speed Designer. Another team tried
to write the application in Visual Studio, but was unsuccessful. Iron Speed Designer's ability
to automatically adjust to an evolving data model helped us tremendously as we iteratively refined
MathCap's requirements.
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Application size and scope |
The MathCap application accesses one Microsoft SQL Server database. It comprises 61 views and
has about 300 Web pages. The largest data base has one million records in
the table, but we are planning a system that can purge and archive data each semester. Currently,
approximately 90 students use MathCap per semester, though this can grow exponentially if the program
is accepted by other universities.
There are a huge number of transactions per month. Every instance of a question prompted to the
student is kept to aid in the decision of which question to next show the student. Each decision
is based on history, category, attempts, pass/fail, etc.
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The project |
Iron Speed Designer was used to develop 90% of the MathCap application. Three developers worked
on the project, which was developed in a record five weeks. Our client first approached us during
the 2007 Thanksgiving holiday and wanted the project completed by New Year's Day to accommodate the
first class session on January 7, 2008.
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Code extensions and customizations |
We wrote approximately 5,000 lines of custom code for the MathCap application, including:
| Selecting courses and classes based on student.
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| Allowing instructors to custom build their application.
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| Allowing instructors to pause during the class.
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| Integrating PayPal, allowing students to pay their course dues.
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We incorporated two third-party components, Telerik and DevExpress.
This was one of the tightest schedules we'd ever worked, and there was no option for
an extension. We didn't keep track of how long it took to write the custom code, but
we were busy day and night.
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Page layout customizations |
We used Iron Speed Designer's Table and Record controls extensively with customizations
to the page layout. Overall, the application is what Iron Speed Designer produces out-of-the-box,
except that we modified the user interface slightly.
We created a custom design theme because consistency was important.
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Iron Speed Designer impact |
This project would not have been feasible without Iron Speed Designer. The
requirements were not defined and there was a tight timeline. Iron Speed Designer
was the only choice, as there is no other product available with the robust technology
and flexibility to cater to our needs. The first unsuccessful prototype was done by a
different team of four over eight months. The Iron Speed Designer version had a team
of three developers who finished the entire project in five weeks. We saved almost 30
months of work and easily $50,000.
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Next steps |
Steve Bisset is busy sharing MathCap with various universities. Many faculty members
are very interested in this model.
We will definitely be adding more users and deploying to additional sites in the future.
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About the developer |
Nilesh has BS in Electronics from Karnataka University and completed a Diploma in
Advanced Computing from the Center for Development of Advanced Computing. He is certified in MCP,
MCAD for .Net MCSD for .Net and Sun Certified Java Programmer.
Nilesh worked as a software consultant with several Fortune 500 companies as well
as with start-up companies. This gave him a broad range of experience in various industries —
manufacturing, pharmaceutical, financial and banking, software product development and management
consulting. Nilesh excels in assessing his clients' needs in order to provide comprehensive solutions.
Nilesh provides quick and innovative business solutions and not just software programs
through his firm Lightspeed Solutions.
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