The question and answer section of the tutorial was developed in Java script and is best viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (http://microsoft.com/ie/) and the latest release of Netscape navigator (http://home.de.netscape.com). When navigating through the tutorial, individual questions will be loaded on the same window and will be controlled by the "Previous question" and "next question" buttons. However, new windows will be opened when the user attempts to look at the preview material for each question and thus allowing the user to toggle back and forth from the question and the material. To exit the tutorial, just click the "back" button from the main question screen and this will bring the user back to the Laboratory menu. When done with a "preview" window, simply close out the window and return to the question window/screen.
In this section we provide a series of questions designed for the users of the tutorial to test themselves on how well they understood the material presented in the tutorial and, more importantly, to gauge how comfortable they feel with HDF.
The questions more or less follow the order of the topics covered in the "Lecture" component of the tutorial. The Laboratory menu provides a breakdown by section of the various questions, and allows the user to select which topics they would like to focus their attention on.
Each question contains the question itself, a set of possible answers, navigation buttons ("Next Question", "Previous Question", "Lab Menu", "End Lab", "Submit Answer") and, most importantly, a feature which allows the user to review material pertaining to the question before answering or after answering incorrectly. This is done by selecting the "Preview Material" button. Since some users will like to take the "test" without any help and others will like to review material before answering (particularly those who may have skipped directly to the Laboratory), it is up to the individual user to decide how to proceed.
It should be noted that, in many cases, there is more than one correct answer for each individual question. The user is allowed to select more than one response and will only receive an "Answered Correctly" response if ALL correct responses have been selected.
To help the users qauge their understanding of HDF and how well they are answering the questions, a "performance gauge" is provided in the upper right hand corner of each question. This quage provides both a numerical (i.e. 7 of 11) and graphical (sliding color bar for 0 - 100%) representation of user performance. The "score" found in the performance gauge only reflects the users' INITIAL answer to each question.
The user's performance in the Laboratory is further diagnosed in a Progress Report reached by clicking on the performance quage. Included in this report are: