Forum: support

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2024-08-29 13:31	[forum:49975]
Hi Amelia, as you can see at https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Release_Notes#3900.98.0 they have made some changes also in August. I suggest waiting for the September 5 update, and then we can collect and share any issues that may still be present. Best regards, Gabriele

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2024-08-28 13:57	[forum:49974] Ima3.png (3) downloads
Hi Gabriele. I pay attention to your comments and understand that BB Ultra is trying to make everything work better. I am attaching an image, in which you can see that the function key is not correct. Until recently, the function looked correct, i.e. the key encompassed all the data in the function. Could it be that BB Ultra is in testing and will soon be seen correctly again? Best regards

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2024-08-21 23:45	[forum:49972]
Yes, of course, I just got the difference when preparing the answer to Bb. Thank you again Achim.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2024-08-21 23:37

[forum:49971]

Thanks for the explanation. I'm aware that (1) and (2) are _currently_ not different. My idea was that you would provide them two different .zip files to test two different strategies. (1) Bb itself loads MathJax. (2) Bb allos the user/file to load MathJax by not filtering it.

Of course, (1) is preferable but maybe (2) would be a first step that is easier for them to do?

Including something with tables is a good idea. Would you use {array} within math markup for the table so that MathJax is used for rendering it?

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2024-08-21 23:08	[forum:49970]
Hi Achim, Bb Ultra filters all javascript when importing packages; and therefore there is no difference in deploying sols (1) and (2). I will, of course, remark again that including the call to Mathjax script in the head of Bb pages (i.e. loading it by Bb) would be the first best solution for us. I am also including a version of relfreq with tables deployed with Latex.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2024-08-21 20:35

[forum:49969]

Gabriele & Thomas, thanks for the follow-up and thank you for your persistence in this issue. You have already achieved more than I would have expected. Fingers crossed that there will be more progress soon.

Regarding the "package" that you should send. I also read this as: sending a .zip file with MathJax so that they can test it.

I would recommend to create two .zip files: (1) Mathematical notation via pandoc-mathjax but _without_ manually embedding the <script> for MatJax. (2) The same but _with_ manually embedding the <script> for MathJax.

Then you can point out that it would be best if (1) would work out of the box, i.e., that the MathJax <script> would already be loaded by Bb itself. If that is not possible, then at least (2) should work in the sense that Bb does not prevent the quiz from loading MathJax manually.

The exercises I would use in the quiz would probably be deriv2.Rmd and cholesky.Rmd.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Thomas Farrar on 2024-08-21 19:39	[forum:49968]
Thanks for your efforts on behalf of the STEM community, Gabriele. The superscript and subscript improvement is already noteworthy. Let's hope that they will also be able to address the MathJax issue in the short term.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2024-08-21 19:28	[forum:49967]
Hi Thomas, Hi Achim, good news: it seems that Bb people are working to fulfill STEM needs. I am preparing the necessary packages (originated by r-exams and by Bb Original) and will reply on Bb blog asap. Regarding September upgrade see https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Administrator/SaaS/Release_Notes#3900.100.0-12 Best regards, Gabriele

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Thomas Farrar on 2024-08-21 18:54

[forum:49966]

@Achim, it seems your pessimism was warranted. However, the administrator from Anthology advised in June that a fix in math formula rendering was expected in August.

Today, she replied to @Gabriele with the following:

'Hi Gabriele

For the upcoming enhancements we are reviewing the following comment you posted:

"Tests created with r exams (https://www.r-exams.org/), a useful and very powerful open-source tool for exams generation, do not work when imported, as course packages, in Bb Ultra, since calls to Mathjax javascript are filtered when importing the package. The filter on javascripts applies also to content of tests imported from Bb Original that include Latex code and work with Mathjax in Bb Original."

Could you be able to send us a package so that we can test what you mentioned above?

look forward to your comments'

I'm not really sure what she means by 'send us a package', but I think the best thing to send her would be a test generated by exams2blackboard in zip format (including formulas in MathJax) so that they can test it out in BB Ultra.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2024-02-19 20:01	[forum:49846]
Hope springs eternal... ;-) More seriously: Thanks for the update, very useful! As usual, the message sounds to me like business jibberish and I'm very pessimistic about progress. But I hope that I'm wrong and I keep my fingers crossed. Thanks & best wishes, Achim

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Thomas Farrar on 2024-02-19 19:09

[forum:49845]

Hello all,

I had not used exams2blackboard with mathematical formulae in a couple of years and my institution switched from Blackboard Learn to Ultra in the meantime. I was shocked to find that all of my old questions and solutions no longer render correctly in any browser.

I'm very grateful for this thread as it helped me to understand the problem. I've just voted for the MathJax support request on the Anthology page, which was the 92nd vote.

I noted a comment from Lorena Zapata, an Anthology admin, posted five days ago, as follows:

"Hi all
Thank you for your comments. Providing you an excellent functionality for math formulas is very important to us. That is why our teams are deeply focused on it and this update is in progress at the moment. I hope to have more updates at the end of next week."

Sounds promising!

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-10-09 21:13	[forum:49771]
Thank you very much Gabriele. I have already voted. Hopefully it will be successful. Best regards

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2023-10-09 20:47

[forum:49770]

We have submitted a new 'idea' proposal to the Anthology feedback site (Blackboard is part of Anthology).

The goal is to ask Bb to make the Mathjax javascript available to render correctly all formulae created with Latex.

If you use Bb as e-learning system, in order to support this 'idea', you need first to register to Anthology, with your university e-mail address, at the following link

https://anthology-teachingandlearning.ideas.aha.io/portal_session/new

Once you have obtained your enrollment confirmation, you can click the following link and 'vote the idea'

https://anthology-teachingandlearning.ideas.aha.io/ideas/LEARNU-I-2948

Thank you for your attention and best regards

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2023-06-24 22:44

[forum:49695]

As far as I know, rendering of mathml is also browser dependent.

Bb creates formulas and transforms as images with WIRIS, see https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Student/Ultra/Add_and_Format_Content/Math_Editor.
Images are, therefore not browser dependent, and are also provided with a short description in English to grant accessibility to all users (but, unfortunately, the description of formula is produced only in English, at least in the Bb html code I have examined)

* @Amelia: this explains the different rendering you find with r exams (mathml is generated by r exams with pandoc and saved in the zip file; then it is converted by Bb when importing the test as image; in this case no description is added for accessibility) and Bb editor that uses WIRIS for generating mathml and converting to image.

* What is interesting on previous Bb page is that also WIRIS is based on javascript. Therefore, a solution to obtain fine formulas might be to ask Bb to allow mathjax javascript too, even if this is not their default method for creating formula.

At the moment, the best I can suggest is to create a common document to be submitted to Bb from all institutions where there is somebody using r exams (or directly mathjax) in order to ask creating an overall exception for mathjax javascript, as the one that already exists for WIRIS javascript, by clearly explaining all positive features of mathjax (it has wider accessibility features, it is not browser dependent, it does not need to create images and possibly formulas are loaded faster, e.g in complex pages like the one containing 300 different versions of a test that are now shown all simultaneously when you click on view questions, it fully implements Latex, etc.).

With regard to mathjax wider accessibility features, just right click on a formula created with mathjax (regarding languages: 45 options are provided).

@Achim: as far as I can understand "when you enable an alternate domain for your site" is an option that IT creator/maintainers of institution/university Bb websites can use as reference for the flex container of the course (Bb ultra renders course pages by means of flexboxes).

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-06-24 20:34	[forum:49694]
Wow, this is big news, I missed that! I just tried it in Chromium on Debian 12 and the MathML indeed looks quite ok. I would say that the Firefox rendering is still a bit better but Chromium's display is alright as well. Thanks for sharing this.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Andrea Tarelli on 2023-06-24 13:32	[forum:49693]
Apparently recent Chrome versions support MathML: https://mathml.igalia.com/news/2023/01/10/mathml-in-chromium-project-is-completed/#new I have just tested myself opening this page: http://eyeasme.com/Joe/MathML/MathML_browser_test.html

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-06-24 13:17

[forum:49692]

My understanding is the following. It has to be taken with a grain of salt, though, because I haven't used Bb Ultra myself!

MathML - as produced by converter = "pandoc" - works "as usual" in Bb Ultra. I.e., it can be viewed correctly in browsers with native MathML support, namely Firefox and Safari.

However, MathML is not supported natively by Chrome (and other related browsers). This would require support for MathJax but this is currently not possible in Bb Ultra.

As for the support in Bb Ultra directly: My understanding is that Bb Ultra uses a plugin that converts formulas into images which can be rendered by all browsers. But Bb Ultra doesn't do this automatically upon import of QTI content.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-06-24 11:57

[forum:49691]

Hello.

So, to sum up, still in Bb Ultra it is not possible that a formula of the type
$$\frac{\bar{X}-\mu}{\dfrac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}}$$
can be viewed correctly, once you generate it with
exams2blackboard("InterConfPregMejPruebaULTRA", n=2, encoding = "utf8",converter = "pandoc", eval = list(partial = T, negative = T, rule = "false"))

On the other hand, if you edit the question in Bb Ultra and you put
$$\frac{\bar{X}-\mu}{\dfrac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}}$$
is displayed correctly.

Best regards

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-06-22 23:51

[forum:49690]

Gabriele, thanks for the follow-up! I'm not surprised that Bb now actively suppresses JavaScript insertion because it can indeed be harmful.

The documentation you have linked about "Add custom HTML or CSS" is somewhat cryptic to me. In particular, it is unclear to me what "when you enable an alternate domain for your site" means. Somehow it seems that certain content can then be loaded via iframes from this alternate site, but I don't know how this could be leveraged to enable MathJax. If anyone knows how to do this I'm happy to have another look.

For now, I have just added a comment in ?exams2blackboard that mathjax=TRUE does not work in Bb Ultra.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Gabriele Cantaluppi on 2023-06-21 22:37

[forum:49689]

Just checked the html code of tests deployed in Bb Ultra.
Some html is removed when importing tests. This happens also when copying/importing from content already deployed in Bb Original, in particular all JavaScript, see https://help.blackboard.com/node/43101

The following html codes is removed when importing from the exams2blackboard zip provided with mathjax features (mathjax = TRUE, converter = "pandoc-mathjax"):
* the mathjax javascript call:
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://mathjax.rstudio.com/latest/MathJax.js?config=TeX-AMS-MML_HTMLorMML"></script>
* all code starting math inline
<span class="math inline">
* all code starting displayed math
<span class="math display">
* and the corresponding closing codes
</span>

Since mathjax renders better layout than mathml, e.g. it allows for Latex \hline in tables, as well as for vertical lines, we could try to ask Bb to create exceptions, when importing tests, for not removing above code strings, which is safe code that allow mathjax to work.
In this case there should be no need for support on R/exams by Bb, and the solution would also help users working with mathjax directly with html, see https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Course_Content/Course_Files/Add_Files_to_Course_Files/Create_HTML_Objects.
Achim can you, please, confirm if above code is sufficient for mathjax to work? Thank you.

Hope that the following can help with regard to mathml in [forum:49654] example.
Comparing html created with Bb Wirisformula and r exams mathml (at the end they are both rendered as images), codes for rendering $\bar x$ appear as:
* Bb Wirisformula: <mover><mi>x</mi><mo>¯</mo></mover>
* r exams: <mover><mi>x</mi><mo accent="true">‾</mo></mover>

* r exams with mathjax (at present it is not rendered as math since javascript is removed as described above) is rendered as text $\bar x $

Best regards

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-04-25 20:21

[forum:49659]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing these insights. So far I have heard a few people who weren't excited about Bb Ultra but this is the most explicit opinion I've heard so far!

Given that we're not aware of suitable technical information for Bb Ultra's quiz import format and given what Andrew shared, I'm afraid there is not much that we can do at the moment to improve the situation for exams2blackboard() for Bb Ultra.

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-04-25 09:10

[forum:49658]

This is the response of Andrew Dalby:

"The issue is that in Ultra until recently there wasn’t support for pages in HTML as part of the assessments. Two years ago I had to make all of my questions images as Ultra would display the text without any formatting. A year ago they put back HTML but it is still not rendering properly, which is why you see the issues. It is when the MATHML out of the LaTex is created it is not formatted properly. I used the latest versions of exams and tth from the R-forge page and it still gives the same issues.

https://r-forge.r-project.org/R/?group_id=1337

You could try and contact the package authors to report the issue. I have rented a personal Moodle site to see if there are the same issues with using Moodle but I have not had a chance to try it yet. Blackboard Ultra is awful."

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-04-24 21:18	[forum:49657]
Well, the question how to correctly import mathematical equations into Bb is not specific to R/exams. But I'm not surprised if their support for this kind of question is poor. Thanks for trying, though. Regarding Andrew Dalby's tutorial: Thanks for the link, I wasn't aware of that!

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ] By: Amelia Garcia Luengo on 2023-04-24 20:44	[forum:49656]
Thank you for your response. I have contacted my university and this was their reply: "Currently Blackboard only offers support on the tools they develop and R/exams is not theirs so they are a bit disengaged from the issue." I have been referred to this link: https://rpubs.com/ardalby/R-exams1 and I have contacted the author to see what he has to say. Regards

RE: The BlackboardUltra version does not generate text and formulas correctly. [ Reply ]
By: Achim Zeileis on 2023-04-24 00:34

[forum:49655]

Strange. This would suggest that Bb Ultra is doing something so that Chrome and Firefox render the MathML content in the same way. Googling for this I found: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Student/Ultra/Add_and_Format_Content/Math_Editor

This says: The math editor is written by WIRIS and based on standards like MathML for internal representation and the PNG image format for displaying formulas. The math editor is based on Javascript and runs on any browser and operating system, including smartphones and tablets.

So possibly this WIRIS thing is just bad at displaying the bars in expressions like yours? Or WIRIS would generate a nice PNG picture which is not generated if we import MathML directly?

Maybe your university offers some support for Bb? If so, you could try to find out whether they can provide some insights and suggest in which format mathematical content should be added.

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