DataShop

Tuesday, 7 November 2017

DataShop 10.0 released!

With this release of DataShop we continue to extend the functionality of Tigris, the LearnSphere workflow tool, as well as enhance it's usability. There is now a 'Recommended Workflows' section at the top of the main Tigris page. This list of workflows contains those we feel best highlight the most useful features of the tool. Using the 'Save As' button, these workflows can be used as templates for users to create their own workflows. In addition, on the main page, there is a search feature that allows users to filter the workflows by name, owner or component.

A focus of this release has been adding support that facilitated the creation of many new components. For example, dynamic options are now supported. This provides component developers with option constraints that can trigger changes to the UI based on the user's selections. Dependencies can be combined in logical combinations to accomodate complex parameter sets.

The new Linear Modeling Analysis component uses this feature, allowing users to call the R functions lm, lmer, glm and glmer on a data file of their choice.

Similarly, the component definition language was extended to allow for optional inputs on components. These are common in components which generate data and also take an optional set of inputs or parameters. An example of this is the new Tetrad Graph Editor. Tetrad is a causal modeling tool that allows users to build models, simulate data from those models (or use them on real data), apply algorithms to the models and graphically display the causal relationships found.

Many features of Tetrad are now supported as Tigris workflow components, making it easier for researchers to do multiple analyses on datasets that may include data from both DataShop and external sources. For example, the following Tetrad support is now available in Tigris:

• Data Conversion
• Classifier
• Estimator
• Search
• Knowledge
• Graph Editor

Following is an example workflow with several of these components. A tab-delimited data file is transformed both to filter missing values and then discretize those values before passing the data to the Search component which searches for causal explanations represented by directed graphs.

Also, two new Analysis components have been added by colleagues at LearnSphere@Memphis. They facilitate analyses of a wider variety of learning sciences data. The new modeling components are TKT (Temporal Knowledge Tracing) and LSA (Latent Semantic Analysis).

Source code for all of the LearnSphere components can be found in our GitHub repository. If you would like to add your analysis, import, transform or visualization component(s) to Tigris, please contact us for information on how to get started.

The last release added 'Request Access' support to workflows, allowing users to request access to data and results in public workflows with shareable data, but it required that all of the data used in the workflow be shareable. Workflows often use multiple data sources, though, so authorization is now enforced per-component. This means that workflows which include both private and shared data can be partially accessed by users. Results and data that are inaccessible show up as 'Locked' components.

In addition to the above Tigris improvements, the following features were added to DataShop:

• The Learning Curve Model Values page now includes the 'Number of Unique Steps' and 'Number of Observations' for each skill (KC) in the selected Knowledge Component model.
• The Web Services API was extended to allow users to query and modify project authorization values.
• Tigris and DataShop both now support a GitHub login option.

Wednesday, 1 November 2017

Attention! DataShop downtime for release of v10.0

DataShop is going to be down for 2-4 hours beginning at 8:00am EST on Tuesday, November 7, 2017 while our servers are being updated with the new release.

Tuesday, 27 June 2017

DataShop 9.4 released - several Tigris enhancements and bug fixes

The latest release of DataShop includes several enhancements and bug fixes for Tigris, the LearnSphere workflow tool.

Returning users will notice a new user interface for Tigris. We have changed the look-and-feel of the tool while making numerous styling improvements and fixing several bugs.

The biggest change is the addition of Request Access support to Tigris. DataShop users are familiar with the feature that allows users to request access to projects with private, shareable datasets. This feature has been extended to Tigris; users can request access to data directly from the Workflows page.

Workflows that use private, shareable data will have a REQUEST button with which users can ask for access to the workflow data. Without access to the data, users are able to view the Public workflows as a template only. Regardless of data access, users can make a copy of any Public workflow for use with their own data.

Most of the Tigris components now have tooltips which contain information on what the component does, the required input(s) and the output(s) generated, as well as the component options.

The implementation code for each of the Tigris workflow components is publicly available in GitHub. If you would like to add your analysis, import, transform or visualization component to Tigris, please contact us for information on how to get started.

In addition to these Tigris improvements, the maximum allowed size for Custom Field values has been increased -- the new limit will now allow for values up to 16M in size -- and a bug in the renaming of Knowledge Component (KC) models has been fixed.

Sunday, 25 June 2017

Attention! DataShop downtime for release of v9.4

DataShop is going to be down for 2-4 hours beginning at 9:00am EST on Monday, June 26, 2017 while our server\ s are being updated with the new release.

Thursday, 16 February 2017

DataShop 9.3 released - Beta version of Tigris

The latest release of DataShop includes a Beta version of the workflow tool, now referred to as Tigris.

In order to facilitate the sharing of analyses, Tigris users can view global workflows created by other users. If the data included in a workflow is public or is attached to a dataset that the user has access to, then the workflow imports, component options and results are all accessible. If the user does not have access to the dataset they can view the workflow as a template. In both cases, users can create a copy of the workflow for use with their own data.

As part of the LearnSphere project, contributors from CMU, the University of Memphis, MIT and Stanford have been building workflow components, many of which are already available in Tigris. The latest code, with descriptions of each component, can be found in GitHub. If you would like to add your analysis, import, or visualization component to Tigris, please contact us for information on how to get started.

In addition to Tigris improvements, we have added a few enhancements and fixed several bugs:

• Users can now make a web service call to retrieve the list of data points that make up any given Learning Curve graph. The list of points can be generated for a particular skill in a specific skill model (KC Model). More about this feature can be found in the updated DataShop Public API doc.
• For OLI datasets, the Learning Curve graphs were extended to include a "high stakes error rate" data point. If you have an OLI dataset for which you'd like to see this analysis, please contact us as we will need to reaggregate your dataset to generate the necessary information.

  

• Long Input values were being truncated in the Error Report. This issue has been addressed.
• The Problem List page was failing to load for datasets with a very large number of problems per hierarchy, or dataset level. This has been fixed.

Friday, 10 February 2017

Attention! DataShop downtime for release of v9.3

DataShop is going to be down for 2-4 hours beginning at 8:00am EST on Thursday, February 16, 2017 while our server\ s are being updated with the new release.