Introduction#

Numbas is an online assessment tool designed for use in mathematics/STEM-based subjects. It is developed by mathematicians at Newcastle University and it is free and open source.

Recently, the MESH Team (Mathematics Education Support Hub) at Western Sydney University have petitioned to have the Numbas LTI server installed for use within Blackboard. This is an exciting opportunity for Western Sydney University (and The College) staff to implement Numbas in their teaching in ways that weren’t previously possible.

It is now possible to link Numbas exams and quizzes to the grade centre in vUWS and gain deeper insight into analytics that was previously not possible without the implementation of the LTI server.

The Lifecycle of a Question#

The basic overview of how Numbas should be implemented in vUWS is as follows:

  1. Write your questions.

  2. Adapt Numbas to the questions you have written.

  3. Add the questions to the quiz and adapt the quiz settings based on whether your quiz is formative or summative.

  4. Export your quiz from the Numbas website and upload it into vUWS.

  5. Use the analtyics to check learner performance, and if necessary return to step 1 and 2.

Image depicting the lifecycle of a question in Numbas. The first step is to write the question. The second step is to adapt Numbas to the question. Then, add the question to a quiz. Export the quiz and add it to vUWS. Once in vUWS you can use the analytics to inform the question design and repeat step 1 and 2 as necessary.

The life cycle of a question in Numbas is continuous in order to best promote student engagement and success.#

The most important thing to remember when using Numbas is to write good questions first and then focus on getting the questions working in Numbas.

The documentation in this guide has been prepared to reflect this. Feel free to make suggestions and contribute where possible. Together we can make Numbas at Western truly great.