Design and Implementation of MAML

Abstract

At ICCM (Internet Computing and Computer Mathematics) lab in Lanzhou University, we are developing MAG (Mathematics Assessment Grid) System to integrate the mathematical question resources on Internet into a very large, open and virtual questions library. As part of the project, Mathematics Assessment Markup Language (MAML), which is used to encode questions, test papers and their description information, has been designed. The MAML, defined by XML, provides well-defined elements that can be used together with SVG and MathML for representing questions and test papers. It is easy to search and transfer questions in MAML on Internet. MAML can also be used in E-Learning and E-Testing system. Presentation information and description information of a question are encoded as well as the content of a question. The users can embed a well-formed question in MAML into XHTML page. The client side is only a browser with plugins for MAML, MathML and SVG. To implement MAML, we are developing an online editor (MaEdit) which is based on MAML, MathML and SVG. The users can edit a question in GUI mode or coding mode. The editor can transform a question between these two modes automatically. In this editor, the users can edit the text, mathematical formula and SVG graph of a question. Graph in other types such as bitmap, gif, jpeg can also be inserted into the question. After editing, the users can save the question which is represented by MAML, MathML and SVG into a database or as a file.