Access, but not as I know it?

[mymou]

Hi All

I have spent quite a few years working with Access, VB and numerous other tools - but almost always working on internal projects usually for large companies churning through huge quantities of data. Presentation has never been an issue - nor has distribution.

Now, a change of situation. I need to produce a quiz type application for a classroom situation. This seems easy enough - but I have no experience of producing an application for a marketplace. So, for the first time, I have no control over the user environment.

So, I face a number of issues: Presentation, development, distribution, maintenance, legal stuff.

Access can do everything I need: Keep track of students, scores etc - but is it suitable for distribution? I have never had to use security to lock up an application before - is this an issue? Presentation isn't perfect, but I assume there are a hundred ways to jazz things up a bit (microsoft agent or whatever)
Maybe a mix of VB and Access would be best - but I have NO idea on ditribution of an application like that (as a simple setup exe). I really don't fancy using
Question(1) = "blah blah"
Answer(1, 1) = "2"
everywhere - seems clumsy.
Maybe, something like Flash or someother web based application would be much easier (or just nicer) in the long run - im open to suggestions (XML and .NET?).

So, i'm just looking for ideas (and examples) for pushing this forward and an idea of the problems im going to find along the way (legalities?).

Any ideas welcome.

Stew

 

[JeremyNYC]

Stew,

If you really need to keep people from hacking into it to get the answsers then no, Access is not suitable. Unfortunately I don't know of suitable products other than SQL server (my ignorance, not lack of existence), and I don't think that's gonna be a right fit <g>.

Sorry.

Jeremy =============
Jeremy Wallace

http://www.AlphaBetCityDataworks.com

Designing and building Access databases since 1995.

 

[CJTyo]

Stew,

I'm sure if you do some searches on Google, or your favorite search engine, on things like &quot;create quiz&quot; or related keywords you'll find products that might be more suitable for what you're considering.

For instance, using Google and keywords: create quiz I found this:

http://www.pc-shareware.com/quiz.htm

Hope that helps,
C


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Insanity is a matter of Perception.

 

[mymou]

JeremyNYC

Not hugely concerned about the lack of security in Access - if students are cracking db in an exam situation I think that is just creative cheating! Even if people can get access to the code - I hope to be legally protected (whatever that means).

Stew