The Hackathon specifically pointed out that they wanted attendees to develop a Computer Based Testing solution that allow user to practice any exam like JAMB, NECO etc. They wanted to to be easily accessed by those with low internet connectivity and those without internet connection at all. It should be fast, intuitive and easy to use.
To solve the internet problem, we made the system work offline directly on the browser. All the user need to do is to login once, then he can practice all he wants without internet.
For those without internet, we developed a USSD based CBT that rides on our RESTful API. It allows users practice via SMS by sending a short code to a designated number.
We made the app a client side app to bring latency close to zero. It has a desktop feel both online and offline.
Some unique features we included were
allowing student practice based on subject topics
audio question type to aid in questions like oral English and music. It can also be useful for the blind.
We added a reward system to keep users motivated and encouraged to keep practicing.
We sha didn’t win but I just wanted to share our work on radar. We came 3rd. Here is the link to the app. http://cbt.klipboard.com.ng/exam and a small landing page that explains our features http://www.klipboard.com.ng/ex/ when u are loged in and practiced a question or two, disconnect your internet to see how offline works.
Is there a link to where we can see the results of others as well? Who came in first and second? I really like this web app and I believe that it can be very useful. I feel like this thread/topic is what TechCabal’s Radarians should be arguing/discussing about unlike some other threads/topics I’ve seen on TechCabal’s Radar. Do you plan on taking it any further than this? Will we see a startup from this? You said that you are in the EduTech Market, what other interesting products do you have? Please keep up the good work my brotha and Happy Sunday!!!
Thanks for the kind words @davidsmith8900. Team PRACTA came 1st position but we were not given any reason why they did. @Bidemi_Adeshina works with Skyler solutions, perhaps he can educate us more on that. am not sure the first and second position put theirs online tho.
Yes we plan on taking it further and probably make the core feature free. It probably needs more work to become production ready. We have a startup already and we develop and sell School Information Management Software using SaaS model.
Sorry at @davidsmith8900, skylar.com.ng crashed immediately after the hackathon due to the traffic we got. We are trying everything possible to put it back up.
Appcache is pretty good … not sure why people are bothering to wait for web workers to do offline stuff.
When you’re doing network state change, I noticed your thing was pretty instant. How are you detecting the change?
Also I turned off the network before registering but it was still a gate keeper to using the app. Might be better if it just stored usage data offline and asked you to register when connecting online while unregistered.
Not Meteor lol. But this is a perfect use case for meteor’s minimongo. The app was done with PHP and Angular with a little of Socket.io and node for some of the background service.
We made every user authentication operation to happen online. So you must register and login online. I don’t know the downside of it yet tho but maybe as time goes on, we can optimize based on how users use the app.
As for network state change, we use Angular to determine that.