Introduction¶
This is a short summery of the work done to improve the functionality of BOL. The following things have been achieved over the last couple of years:
Added BibleOL Functionality (by AU team in cooperation with Claus):¶
All our code is found here: https://github.com/cascav4l/BibleOL/tree/merge-exam-mode
"Administration/Manage exams" was added (for instructors only):
This new function allows for creating BOL based exams. One is allowed to stitch together different BOL exercises and loop trough them when taking the exam. One can give each exam a name, weigh the grade for each different exercise, define the time window in which the exam must be taken. Once the exam is created one can create an instance of that exam and offer it to a selected BOL class. An indefinite amount of instances can be created from each exam so that the same exam can be used each semester anew. The grade of the exam will be calculated automatically.
- "My Data/Grade Quizzes" was added (for instructors only):
This function offer the following for instructors (not available for students!):
- automated grading of exercises
- automated sorting of exercise runs with the best run showing as most relevant run
- looking into the details of each run (what was the question, what was the provided answer, what would have been the correct answer)
- "My Data/Grade My Quizzes" was added (for students):
This function is offered to all users (including students). Here the same functionality found under "Grade QUizzes" is found. The only difference is that one can only see one's own performance and not that of the entire class.
- "Text and Exercises/Exams" was added:
Here students go in order to take their exam.
Added BOL dataset features:¶
Biblia Hebraica¶
- Verbal Class (by Oliver):
I have develpped the feature verbal class to allow instructors to select specific verbal classes for their morphological exercises. A phenomenological approach was chosen to calculate these verbal classes. All searches were written in the MQL query language and executed in the SHEBANQ environment (https://shebanq.ancient-data.org/hebrew/queries: look for "paradigm" within the "Paradigm Project"). However, later refinements have been made with TextFabric.
- Additional Verbal Tenses (by Oliver):
Some additional verbal tenses had to be calculated and added to the dataset: Cohortative, Jussive, Emphatic imperative. In this way instructors can exclude or include these tenses one's covered by the instructor. Again, these additional tenses were initually calculated by MQL queries (within SHEBANQ) and at a later time refined by TextFabric queries.
- Adding Ambigious Forms information (by Oliver):
Many ambigious forms appear in each languages. In order to prevent student frustration I have identified all verbal forms that have one or more alternative morphological interpretations. The instructor can then decide to provide a hint to the student to prevent him/her from making a correct morphological analysis that happens to be wrong in the given context.
- Adding Lexeme with Variant (by Oliver):
Homographs can not be identified with roman numbering:
- Adding Monad numbers (by Claus):
We can now use TextFabric to identify the exact monads that one wants to present to a student in any given exercise. In this way one can make sure that in a vocab exercise, for example, no word is being presented more than 3 times. This will help to prevent words like "W" ("and") to appear very often while less frequent words appears very seldomly. Similar data restriction are possible regarding morphology exercises (all word based). Also for selecting clauses that students can translate, the monad numbering is crucial. A seamless integration of TextFabric queries and BOL exercise writing is possible.
- Improvements on Glosses (by Oliver):
Constant improvements on glosses (Hebrew and Aramaic) have been made. Also gloss prioritization has been enabled (by splitting particularly verbal glosses into their stem and calculating their distribution in the HB, those stems that have highest distribution where then prioritized in BOL.
Nestle 1904¶
- Adding Noun classes/declensions (by Mikkel)
Mikkel has developed the feature noun declension to allow instructors to select specific noun declensions for their morphological exercises.
- Adding Noun stem (by Mikkel)
Mikkel has developed the feature noun stem to allow instructors to select specific noun stems for their morphological exercises.
- Adding Verb type/conjugations (by Mikkel)
Mikkel has develpped the feature verb type to allow instructors to select specific verbal classes for their morphological exercises.
- Adding Ambigious Forms information (by Oliver):
- Adding Monad numbers (by Claus):
We can now use TextFabric to identify the exact monads that one wants to present to a student in any given exercise. In this way one can make sure that in a vocab exercise, for example, no word is being presented more than 3 times. This will help to prevent words like "W" ("and") to appear very often while less frequent words appears very seldomly. Similar data restriction are possible regarding morphology exercises (all word based). Also for selecting clauses that students can translate, the monad numbering is crucial. A seamless integration of TextFabric queries and BOL exercise writing is possible.
TextFabric and BOL¶
BHSa version 4c¶
I have added many additional data features to different version of the BHSa. All additions can be found here: https://github.com/CenterBLC/BHSaddons. All new datafeatures found in the BOL version of the BHSa (version 4c) can also be found in my BHSa additions for TF. In addition to enrich the BHSA v=4c data, I have also added new data feature to two more BHSa versions (2017, 2021). With the BHSa v=4c having the same data features in BOL and TF allows for precise locating of exercise material. Identified monad numbers can then be simple added to a BOL exercise. For example, in TF I can search for all clauses that contain words with a frequency up to 500 times only. I can then use the monad numbers of all words and implement them in a BOL exercise. Now the student can translate entire clauses with the limited vocabulary he/she has learned.
Nestle 1904¶
I have converted the N1904 text to TextFabric and have added many new features to the text (that were not implemented into BOL). These features help identifying monads that then can be used for BOL exercises. For example, in TF I can search for all clauses that contain words with a frequency up to 500 times only. I can then use the monad numbers of all words and implement them in a BOL exercise. Now the student can translate entire clauses with the limited vocabulary he/she has learned. The TF environment for the N1904 version can be found here: https://github.com/CenterBLC/NA
Important!¶
- Since many exercises are now based on monad number selections it is important that any database update is well prepared. Several exercises will need to receive a recaluclation of monad numbers when run on the bases of a new database.
- Presently the AU team works on converitng the syntax (low fat trees) of the N1904 into TF to allow for better syntax exercises in BOL. If the Greek database will be changed (for example into UBS) we need to be informed in advance to transition our syntax work to the new platform.