Hi @David Harper CFA FRM @Nicole Seaman
I've been thinking about BT forum enhancement suggestions, and wanted to list some which I think technology might help rather than requiring tons of manual work (hoping they're technically feasible).
Edit: Sorry this has turned into an essay, but hopefully it's helpful!
The BT forum is both the best & worst part of BT
Pro:
It's a fantastic resource full of gems if you have the time and interest to dig deep and learn (often beyond what's strictly needed for the exam).
Con:
If you're focused on passing the exam and optimizing your study time it can be frustrating to sift through all the old posts to find the explanation you need to fully grasp a concept, or to figure out if some of the older questions are still relevant to the current GARP learning objectives (I know you can look up @Nicole Seaman 's helpful Curriculum Analysis spreadsheet https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2017-2018-curriculum-change-analysis-spreadsheet.13307/, but that also takes time).
Personally I'm interested in learning and exploring, but as exam day got closer I found myself becoming the classic "is this on the test" kind of person whose key focus became passing the exam (not proud of it, but that's the reality). With the exam behind us now and time pressure removed (at least until the results are out), I'm back into relaxed learning & exploration mode
Suggestions:
1) Tag practice questions by learning objective, and have a Red/Amber/Green traffic light scheme like Basel backtesting for their relevance
So you'd have a unique ID for each FRM learning objective (LO) and as you write new questions (I realize updating the old ones would take lots of time, so at least start going forward) you'd tag each question to the relevant learning objective(s) and it would be Green to start - meaning fully relevant to the current curriculum.
As the LOs change over time, you take @Nicole Seaman 's great work on the AIM comparison spreadsheet and map the old to new LOs and if:
A) There have been some changes to the LO but it is still mostly applicable it would become Amber (yellow?). Then ideally you could click on the color and see both the original LO, and the current one so you can see how they've changed.
B) The LO has been removed, or has changed so much that any questions based on it would no longer be relevant to the current curriculum, then they'd become Red. So those who are focused on passing the exam can just skip these, and those who are interested and have time can look at them out of curiosity without giving them undue attention. Also being able to click on the color and seeing the nature of the change in LO would help.
Aside from technical feasibility, you'd also have to determine the criteria for when questions change color (how big a change makes you Red rather than Amber?).
This last part probably isn't feasible due to formatting issues, but imagine if updating a PQ PDF was automated by automatically removing the questions that became red!
2) Filter posts on Practice Questions by question number tag
Since the practice questions come in 3s, it can often take time to find the relevant forum posts regarding the question you're after (assuming you don't have doubts about all 3).
Here it would be great if people had to tag the specific question they're referring to, and you could then filter to just see comments and replies based on the question number.
Another way to achieve this would be to post the questions individually rather than in 3s, but I guess that adds more admin work when posting them, and some could have related answers/concepts (in which case all the relevant question numbers would get tagged if we stick with the 3 questions per post setup).
3) Filter posts on Practice Questions by question by most Likes/Informative/Agree/Useful/Winner ratings
Here I guess part of the challenge is that there are lots of ways of saying a post added value (Like/Informative/Agree/Useful/Winner), but often the most useful posts have lots of these positive ratings, so this might be a quick way of filtering the most useful posts about the practice questions in a thread.
4) Have typeahead showing relevant threads as you're writing a new one in case yours is a duplicate
I know that especially as exam day approaches, people are stressed and short on time so spend less time looking for existing answers to their questions and are more likely to just post a duplicate question.
Maybe you could have something like google's typeahead where as you type, relevant forum thread titles come up so people could see a duplicate and navigate to it more easily.
Screenshot:
I realize I have no insight into technical feasibility for these, but thought it might help to get your creative juices flowing
Other existing enhancements I like just for my reference so I have everything listed in one place:
A) Show question & answer choices with the explanations to practice questions to avoid scrolling back and forth
https://forum.bionicturtle.com/thre...ture-practice-question-pdfs.10308/#post-60734
B) Update date stamp in PDF materials
https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/suggestions.9533/#post-42029
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks
Karim
I've been thinking about BT forum enhancement suggestions, and wanted to list some which I think technology might help rather than requiring tons of manual work (hoping they're technically feasible).
Edit: Sorry this has turned into an essay, but hopefully it's helpful!
The BT forum is both the best & worst part of BT
Pro:
It's a fantastic resource full of gems if you have the time and interest to dig deep and learn (often beyond what's strictly needed for the exam).
Con:
If you're focused on passing the exam and optimizing your study time it can be frustrating to sift through all the old posts to find the explanation you need to fully grasp a concept, or to figure out if some of the older questions are still relevant to the current GARP learning objectives (I know you can look up @Nicole Seaman 's helpful Curriculum Analysis spreadsheet https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/2017-2018-curriculum-change-analysis-spreadsheet.13307/, but that also takes time).
Personally I'm interested in learning and exploring, but as exam day got closer I found myself becoming the classic "is this on the test" kind of person whose key focus became passing the exam (not proud of it, but that's the reality). With the exam behind us now and time pressure removed (at least until the results are out), I'm back into relaxed learning & exploration mode
Suggestions:
1) Tag practice questions by learning objective, and have a Red/Amber/Green traffic light scheme like Basel backtesting for their relevance
So you'd have a unique ID for each FRM learning objective (LO) and as you write new questions (I realize updating the old ones would take lots of time, so at least start going forward) you'd tag each question to the relevant learning objective(s) and it would be Green to start - meaning fully relevant to the current curriculum.
As the LOs change over time, you take @Nicole Seaman 's great work on the AIM comparison spreadsheet and map the old to new LOs and if:
A) There have been some changes to the LO but it is still mostly applicable it would become Amber (yellow?). Then ideally you could click on the color and see both the original LO, and the current one so you can see how they've changed.
B) The LO has been removed, or has changed so much that any questions based on it would no longer be relevant to the current curriculum, then they'd become Red. So those who are focused on passing the exam can just skip these, and those who are interested and have time can look at them out of curiosity without giving them undue attention. Also being able to click on the color and seeing the nature of the change in LO would help.
Aside from technical feasibility, you'd also have to determine the criteria for when questions change color (how big a change makes you Red rather than Amber?).
This last part probably isn't feasible due to formatting issues, but imagine if updating a PQ PDF was automated by automatically removing the questions that became red!
2) Filter posts on Practice Questions by question number tag
Since the practice questions come in 3s, it can often take time to find the relevant forum posts regarding the question you're after (assuming you don't have doubts about all 3).
Here it would be great if people had to tag the specific question they're referring to, and you could then filter to just see comments and replies based on the question number.
Another way to achieve this would be to post the questions individually rather than in 3s, but I guess that adds more admin work when posting them, and some could have related answers/concepts (in which case all the relevant question numbers would get tagged if we stick with the 3 questions per post setup).
3) Filter posts on Practice Questions by question by most Likes/Informative/Agree/Useful/Winner ratings
Here I guess part of the challenge is that there are lots of ways of saying a post added value (Like/Informative/Agree/Useful/Winner), but often the most useful posts have lots of these positive ratings, so this might be a quick way of filtering the most useful posts about the practice questions in a thread.
4) Have typeahead showing relevant threads as you're writing a new one in case yours is a duplicate
I know that especially as exam day approaches, people are stressed and short on time so spend less time looking for existing answers to their questions and are more likely to just post a duplicate question.
Maybe you could have something like google's typeahead where as you type, relevant forum thread titles come up so people could see a duplicate and navigate to it more easily.
Screenshot:
I realize I have no insight into technical feasibility for these, but thought it might help to get your creative juices flowing
Other existing enhancements I like just for my reference so I have everything listed in one place:
A) Show question & answer choices with the explanations to practice questions to avoid scrolling back and forth
https://forum.bionicturtle.com/thre...ture-practice-question-pdfs.10308/#post-60734
B) Update date stamp in PDF materials
https://forum.bionicturtle.com/threads/suggestions.9533/#post-42029
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks
Karim
