Enterprise Diploma (abbreviated as "EDU"; sort of an acronym but we could never decide what the "U" stood for!) was a homework management system I developed in a collaboration between the University of Nebraska and Brownstone Learning between 2001 and 2005. It was developed from the earlier WebTests software which I created at the University of Nebraska and which was marketed as the Wiley WebTests in Calculus (and Precalculus). EDU became the core of branded products offered by four of the leading college textbook publishers, and also of Maplesoft's MapleTA (now Möbius) - see Branded Products for more details.
This page presents screenshots and descriptions of some of the core features of EDU, from around the 2.6 version released in 2004.
One of EDU's key differentiators was the wide range of sophisticated question types it offered. This placed it far ahead of other online products at the time, which were heavily reliant on multiple choice and similar question types.
In contrast, EDU supported over 25 question types, which included intelligent grading of free-form math and science answers. In addition, EDU question could make use of an scripting language to generate potentially enormous numberts of different randomized versions of each question.
Follow these links for more information on EDUs questions and randomizing algorithms:
EDU was designed specifically with STEM education in mind. Strong support for mathematical content and notation was a key feature throughout the product. Mathematical features included; intelligent grading of free-form math responses, rendering of static and dynamic math content on the web, and WYSIWYG entry of math expressions.
Precatice assignments were anonymous sessions whiuch students took to build strength and confidence. The screenshots show a selection of pages as a student steps through a practice session to build calculus skills.
The core units of an EDU deployment were individual classes. Each class was managed by an instructor and students would register to join the class. Assigments were local to each class (although there were capabilities for sharing assigments between multi-section classs).
The screenshots show a class landing page and the login flow for the instructor, leading to the instructor's home page. This gave the instructor access to content creation tools, the gradebook, and class admin.
EDU's assignments were highly customizable. The screenshots show the creation/editing flow for assigments and illustrate the range of options available. Along the way, the instructor selects question for the assignment from question banks (see below) and sets policies.
Assignments were build up with questions drawn from question banks. Questions could be reused in different assignments and question banks could be shared between classes. The instructor used the question bank editor shown here to preview, test, create, and edit questions. Many of the screenshots in the question types page showcase the editors for different types of question.
Learning resources (assignments and question banks) could be shared between instructors in two ways. An instructor could simply bundle up all the assignments and question banks from their class as a class module, which could then be installed in another class. This was a convenient way of downloading and transferring data, but meant that of course subsequent changes to the original resources were not carried over. So address this, EDU also supported a sophisticated class inheritance feature. When setting up a class, it could be created as the child of some other (shared) class. It would then inherit copies of the assignments and question banks of its parent, and these would stay synced with subsequent changes. (The instructor also had the ability to break the parent-child link for individual assignments or question banks, and customize them themselves.)