Wikisoba project/JSON specification for version 2

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This is the working page for designing the JSON specification for Wikisoba Mark II.

Working assumption

The JSON for any one "slide" (adopting the term in Mark I) reads as

[configuration array, data array]

The configuration array starts by giving the "slide type", which would be 1 for questions, out of about five types in all, the other types being ways of including supporting material. The array will have about a dozen items, including some the legacy of Moodle export as in the JSON-GIFT sample.

Overall structure

This should be as:

[intro, section array, outro]

with the section array as:

[section(1), section(2), ..., section(K)]

and a section as

[nav1, slide array, nav2]

Here a slide array is like

[slide(1), slide(2), ..., slide(K)]

and the slides are expected to be of about five types, type #1 being the question type.

Choice-cloze type

This is to be a versatile question type, including a number of typical multiple choice and missing text (cloze) formats. Its data array will look like

[S-array, T-array]

Here the S-array will be

[S(1), S(2), ..., S(N + 1)]

and the S(i) will be strings, possibly null, subject to JSON constraints and the constraint that S(N + 1) is either null or ends in a terminating punctuation mark.

The T-array will be

[T(1), T(2), ..., T(M)]

Example would be the case M = N, each T(j) is a single word, and the piece of text to reconstruct reads S(1) T(1) S(2) T(2) ... S(N) T(N) S(N + 1). Then the software should display boxes between the S(i), display the words T(j) below in a random order, and the user is supposed to drag the words into the boxes.

In general T(j) will be an array

[T(j) strings, T(j) annotations]

Here

T(j) strings

is an object, consisting of strings each of which is an acceptable answer in the place between S(j) and S(j + 1).

T(j) annotations

has to carry the other information in the question, namely any dummy answers,<re>I.e. false answers, in multiple choice terms.</ref> custom hints, responses, special reset information, special scoring information. The array part for dummy answers need to contain pairs like [dummy answer, response]; where response can be set to null as the default.

Five examples

Going beyond simply matching phrases into boxes (type A question), there are two types of added complexity, namely multiple choice, and colour coding. Colours can identify which answers relate to which box (i.e. calibrate the missing phrases a bit).

Type	Plain	Coloured
Matching	A	n/a
Check box	B	C
Complex	D	E

The colouring option clearly should be operated by the question subtype field, but may also be a custom hint. The dummy answers should be listed in the annotations.

Traditional multiple choice

There is only one box, so N = 1 for multiple choice, and S(2) is null. Also M = 1. Only types B and D are relevant, and correspond to ...

Configuration list

This is a provisional listing of some fields that should occur in the configuration array, mostly with default values.

1. (Slide type) 1
2. (question type) choice/cloze
3. (question subtype) A to E
4. (equality test) non-case sensitive equality of Unicode strings
5. (display type) graphical
6. (wikidata item) Use as a tag for topic area
7. (response type) enabled
8. (hint type) go back | wikidata | custom
9. (reset type) back to question start
10. (scoring type) none
11. (timing type) none
12. Legacy fields: allow for some carried forward from Moodle
13. Provenance and attribution of question