The online self-tests

Paul Tomassi was a passionate advocate and innovator in the use of learning technology to radically transform the learning experience of students studying Formal Logic.

Since his first foray into electronic tutoring of logic in 1999 [1], Paul, in collaboration with the University's Learning Technology Unit (LTU), had gone on to develop a substantial database of formal logic questions that compliment his book Logic [2].

The database originally started as a project with the LTU in 2001 and resulted in the award of a grant by the Higher Education Academy Subject Network in Philosophical and Religious Studies to provide a set of online self-tests in Formal Logic for the benefit of students in Higher Education.

The questions ranged as Paul put it " from proof construction in Propositional Logic through translation into/out of monadic Quantificational Logic, to translation into/out of polyadic Quantificational Logic, including multiple quantification, numerically definite quantification and definite descriptions " and provided comprehensive feedback " from a few lines to a whole page of text devoted to explaining (and clarifying) key points and issues ". He considered the level of feedback provided, the database developed and the whole approach taken to proof construction to be unique.

The students found Paul's online materials extremely accessible and engaging, just as they did his face-to-face teaching. Paul believed that it was students' learning experience that was at the heart of successful studies in Formal Logic, a notoriously difficult subject. He did not follow the current trend to make logic courses easier, yet his courses were still popular and the numbers of students studying logic at the University of Aberdeen increased.

To experience some of Paul's online logic self-tests for yourself, please visit http://question.abdn.ac.uk/q/perception.dll and log in using logic for both username and password .

[1]Using Tarski's World & Hyperproof - http://www-csli.stanford.edu/hp/Logic-software.html

[2]Logic , Routledge. London & New York. 1999