Nicola Willis Undergraduate Dissertation 2015/16

Multiple Choice Tests in Scripts other than Latin

Supervised by S.North

Abstract

The aim of this project was to design, implement and test an online system which the Modern Languages Teaching Centre  at The University of Sheffield could use to set quizzes for its students in each of the seven languages it teaches: Arabic, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese and Spanish. Crucially, the system had to support languages which were not written in a Latin based script as well as languages which were written and read in different horizontal directions. Furthermore, the project aimed to simplify the quiz process currently offered by My Online  Learning Environment (MOLE) through the use of a straightforward interface and well-designed database.

Comprehensive research was carried out in order to determine the best features of existing web-based quiz systems which could be implemented in the project. The process through which such a system could be developed was then researched alongside eligible programming languages for implementation.

After conducting this research, a detailed requirements table was produced and used to develop both a database design, and a visual design for the system.

The system was implemented using the Ruby on Rails framework with Bootstrap. The majority of requirements as detailed in the original requirements table were completed to a high standard and thorough software testing was completed in order to assess the final quality of the system.

The full implementation process and findings due to software testing are described in this document along with a detailed reflective analysis of the project cycle as a whole. Finally, the limitations of the project in its final form are discussed as well as suggestions for future improvement and expansion.