[texhax] Question about LaTex Classes

[Matthew Leingang]

On Feb 7, 2008, at 11:03 PM, Keith Smith wrote:

> Hello,
>
>
> A colleague of mine recently introduced me to La Tex as a tool for  
> writing math assessments.  I am working on creating a database of  
> math problems (test item bank) and was wondering if La Tex might be  
> a good tool for this purpose.
>
I've done similar projects and written the problems in LaTeX (no  
space, BTW).  I wouldn't use LaTeX as the database itself, but as a  
language for expressing mathematics, it's unparalleled.  I wouldn't  
dream of anything else.

Of course, you're asking a group of TeX and LaTeX users. :-)
> I’m hoping to find a contact person that I can talk with about my  
> project and see if La Tex is a solution.  If so, then I’m hoping to  
> get some training and/or to hire a consultant to help me get started.
>
On the database side, my advice is to look into the standards of  
learning object metadata (LOM) so that when you create your database  
you'll be able to describe it in well-recognized terms.  Then you'll  
have to create a vocabulary describing the problems and the skills  
they test--look to educational standards for this.  There's probably  
existing projects like this; see if you can find the schemas they use.

Yours,
Matthew Leingang

--
Matthew Leingang
Preceptor in Mathematics
Harvard University

http://www.math.harvard.edu/~leingang/vCard.vcf