Automatic Formula Checking

Link

Several of our [Coursera] classes involve students using mathematical expressions, but there was no way for us to automatically check this work [..] we have decided to leverage sympy , an open source Python library for symbolic mathematics that is also used by SageMath, by using the parser it provides and running basic symbolic checking. If the symbolic check succeeds, we can state with confidence that the student’s solution is correct, but if it fails, we continue to a numeric check. Sympy also has the ability to generate LaTeX code for math expressions, allowing a student to sanity check an answer by previewing it before submitting:

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Very cool. Online education is open to so much innovation such as this. Classical education is already dead in that regard. Placing an electronic blackboard instead of a wooden one in a classroom will change nothing. But the stuff above, will make a huge difference in reach, scale, and asynchronization of education.