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Create content in the browser

Now that you have access to your course in https://us.prairielearn.com, it is time to start creating course content.

This is a view of your course home page (or a similar variation, depending on when your course was originally created):

This tutorial will show you how to create:

Creating a course instance

A course instance corresponds to a single offering of a course, such as "Fall 2024", or possibly "Fall 2024, Section M". Follow the steps below to create a new course instance:

  • click the button Add course instance.

  • click the button Change CIID to change the course instance ID name. Typically we recommend using a short version of the course instance name, for example, Fa24.

  • click the Edit button next to infoCourseInstance.json.

  • in longName, add your course instance name. For example:

    "longName": "Fall 2024, Section M"

  • in allowAccess, you should set the dates in which you want your course to be available (other access options). For example:

    "allowAccess": [
    {
        "startDate": "2024-08-17T00:00:01",
        "endDate": "2024-12-18T23:59:59"
    }
]

  • click Save and sync.

  • You will be able to see the new course instance from the course home page. You can always return to the course home page by clicking your course number from the top menu, next to the PrairieLearn button.

Creating questions from scratch

Add a new question

  • go to the Questions tab. Your questions page should be similar to the example below:

  • click the button Add question.

  • click the button Change QID to change the question ID name. Typically, question authors choose QID that provide some big-picture idea of the question topic. For example, find_rectangle_area.

  • click the Edit question configuration link to modify the info.json file.

  • change the question title. For example:

    "title": "Find the area"

  • change the question topic. This will be very helpful when using the filter to find questions under a specific topic. For example:

    "topic": "Geometric properties"

  • you can use tags to add more levels to your filter. For example, you can add the email of the question author, the semester when the question was created, and the type of question. Tags are optional.

    "tags": [
    "author@email.com",
    "fa24",
    "MC"
],

  • you should not change the "type": "v3" field, which is the most current version of PrairieLearn questions.

  • click Save and sync.

Change the content of the question

To provide a simple example, here we first create a question without any randomization, by modifying the file question.html.

  • go to the Files tab.

  • click the Edit button next to question.html.

  • Modify the content of the file. You may want to start by copying this simple example:

    <pl-question-panel>
  <p>What is the area of a rectangle that has sides 4 and 5?</p>
</pl-question-panel>

<pl-multiple-choice answers-name="area">
  <pl-answer correct="true">20</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">10</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">9</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">18</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">40</pl-answer>
</pl-multiple-choice>

  • click Save and sync

  • go to the Preview tab to see your question. Try it out!

  • if you go back to the question tab, you should see your new question.

Note that this question does not use any server side code, and for that reason, the file server.py is not needed. Indeed, you could just delete server.py for this question. (we will not remove the file for the purpose of the following steps of this tutorial).

Start a new question from an existing one inside your own course

  • from the Questions tab, select the question you want to copy. As an example, we will use the question with QID find_rectangle_area.

  • go to the Settings tab.

  • click the button Make a copy of this question. Click Submit to make a copy of the question inside your own course. You are now viewing the copy of the question.

  • click the button Change QID to change the question ID name. In this example, we will use find_rectangle_area_rand.

  • click the Edit question configuration link to modify the info.json file.

  • change the question title. In this case, you can just remove (copy 1) from the title, come up with another one, or leave it as is.

  • you can change topic and tags as needed.

  • click Save and sync.

Change the content of the question

We will add randomization to the previous question, using the file server.py

  • go to the Files tab.

  • click the Edit button next to server.py. Here is where you can define the question variables, and add randomization. Here is a how we can modify the original area example:

    import random
def generate(data):
    # define the sides of the rectangle as random integers
    a = random.randint(2,5)
    b = random.randint(11,19)
    # store the sides in the dictionary "params"
    data["params"]["a"] = a
    data["params"]["b"] = b
    # define some typical distractors
    data["params"]["distractor1"] = (a*b)/2
    data["params"]["distractor2"] = 2*(a*b)
    data["params"]["distractor3"] = 2*(a+b)
    data["params"]["distractor4"] = (a+b)
    # define the correct answer
    data["params"]["truearea"] = a*b

  • click Save and sync.

  • go to the Files tab.

  • click the Edit button next to question.html.

    <pl-question-panel>
  <p>What is the area of a rectangle that has sides {{params.a}} and {{params.b}}?</p>
</pl-question-panel>

<pl-multiple-choice answers-name="area">
  <pl-answer correct="true">{{params.truearea}}</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">{{params.distractor1}}</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">{{params.distractor2}}</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">{{params.distractor3}}</pl-answer>
  <pl-answer correct="false">{{params.distractor4}}</pl-answer>
</pl-multiple-choice>

  • click Save and sync.

  • go to the Preview tab to see your question. Try it out! Check a different variant and see how the variables change.

Start a new question from an existing one outside your own course

Copying questions from the example course (XC 101)

You should also have access to the example course XC 101. From the top menu, next to the PrairieLearn homepage button, you can select other courses that you were allowed access to. Select XC 101. If you cannot see the example course, contact us on Slack (#pl-help) and we will make sure you gain access.

You can look over all questions by going to the Questions tab. Or you can select course instance SectionA where some of the questions are organized by assessment. For example, Question gallery for PL elements will have a collection of examples for each PrairieLearn element. If you are interested in coding autograders, you can check Questions using external auto-graders.

Once you find a question that you want to use as template, you can follow these steps:

  • click on the Settings tab.

  • click the button Make a copy of this question. Select your course and click Submit.

  • That is it! You are now viewing a copy of the question inside your course. You can modify the question following the steps from the section above.

Copying questions from www.prairielearn.com

  • Go to https://www.prairielearn.com/catalog/questions

  • Browse through the questions until you find one that can be used as template for your course. Then click the button "Copy question".

  • Select your course from the dropdown menu and click "Copy question".

  • That is it! You are now viewing a copy of the question inside your course. You can modify the question following the steps from the section above.

Creating a new assessment

Before you create an assessment, make sure you are in the desired course instance.

  • click the button Add assessment.

  • click the button Change AID to change the assessment ID name. In general, we use names such as Homework1 or Exam5.

  • click the Edit button next to infoAssessment.json.

  • select the assessment type to be either Homework or Exam. For this example, we will use Homework.

  • change the title. For example:

    "title": "Geometric properties and applications",

  • you can change the assessment set, which is used for better organization of the course instance. PrairieLearn has some standardized sets (eg. Homework, Quiz, Exam), and you can also create your own.

  • change the number of the assessment (within its set). This number will be used to sort the assessments in the Assessment page.

  • in allowAccess you should set the dates in which you want the assessment to be available. Read the documentation about Access controls to learn about the different configurations available. In this example, we will use:

    "allowAccess": [
    {
        "startDate": "2020-09-01T20:00:00",
        "endDate": "2020-09-06T20:00:00",
        "credit": 100
    }
]

  • in zones you should enter the questions to be included in that assessment. We will add the two questions that we just created:

    "zones": [
    {
        "questions": [
            {"id": "find_rectangle_area_rand", "points": 1, "maxPoints": 5},
            {"id": "find_rectangle_area", "points": 1, "maxPoints": 1}
        ]
    }
]

  • click Save and sync.

Check how a student will see the assessment

Follow these steps to preview an assessment as a student:

  • From the main assessment page (click Assessments on the top menu bar), switch to student view by using the dropdown menu next to your name on the top menu and select "Student view without access restrictions". This action will take you to the Student Assessment page.

  • Select the desired assessment (in our example Geometric properties and applications).

  • Browse through the questions included in the assessment. Submit answers and observe how the points are updated in the assessment overview page.

When using "Student view without access restrictions", you have access to all assessments, regardless of their start and end dates. If you want to have a preview of only the assessments available to the students at the current time, you should select "Student view" from the dropdown menu.

Learn more: