COURSE INFO
SYLLABUS
GENERAL INFORMATION
WEBWORK
OFFICE HOURS
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General Information about WeBWorK
Shamelessly taken from Tom Shemanske
I. What is WeBWorK ?
WeBWorK is a system that allows students to do their homework
in an interactive web-based environment.
Using WeBWorK, students may try to answer homework problems
more than once. After each try, a message appears telling the student
whether the answer is correct or not. This provides immediate
feedback to the students, allows them to discover what they did wrong,
and hopefully alows them to understand the topic of the question
better.
Each WeBWorK problem set is individualized. Each student has
a different version of a problem generated from a fixed template; for
example the numerical values in the formulas may be slightly
different).
II. How anybody can try out WeBWorK
Anyone with an internet connection can try out WeBWorK by following
the directions in Part III below. Use practice1 as
the login name and practice1 again
as the password. To see different problems, you can
login as practice2, practice3, or practice4 and use the login name for
the password.
III. How to use WeBWorK to do your homework
Using WeBWorK is quite simple.
Below are the basic steps on how to get started.
NOTE: Most pages of WeBWorK also contain
directions. Therefore, if you are ever unsure of what you should
do, try reading the directions and descriptions on the page at which
you are looking.
- You can use any computer with a browser like Netscape or MSIE. In
general, it is not possible to use a text-based browser like lynx
since most of the mathematics is rendered using a graphic format.
- Open Netscape and go to the
main WeBWorK page, address
https://webwork.dartmouth.edu/webwork2/m13s05/.
- This will get you to the main page of your course. This page
includes necessary information about logging in.
To log in, click on the 'Login' button.
- This will take you to a login page. Enter your
login name and password, and click on the 'Continue' button.
Your login name is the usually just your last name,
followed possibly by a digit for people in the class with the same
last name (e.g. smith, smith2, ...)). Possible exceptions include
compound last name like "den Hartog" or "De La Huerta" which would
be rendered Hartog and Huerta respectively.
Your initial password is (unless you gave me
something else) your six-character student ID ``number''.
- If your login is incorrect, you will be told so, and you can
return to the login page and try again.
- If you are registered for the course, you should receive and email
from your instructor confirming your login and password.
If your login is
correct you will see a page where you can do following:
- Look at and do the problems in a set via Netscape.
To do the first days assignment, for example, click on the line in
the box that starts with 'f03day1'. Then click on the 'Do problem
set' button. On each line in the box, where all the sets are
listed, after the set number, you can see whether the set is open or
closed. If the set is open, that means that when you solve a
problem, it will be counted towards your grade. If the set is
closed, you can still solve problems, but your results will not be
recorded. After the indication of whether the set is open or
closed, there is additional information about the due date (if the
set is open), or whether the answers are available (if the set is
closed).
- Get a printout of the problem set.
To print out f03day1, for example, first choose the download type.
THe default of pdf is probably what you want, although you may have
to configure your browser to use Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view (and
print) the files.
After choosing one of the download types, click on the line in
the box that starts with 'f03day1...'. Then click on the 'Get hard
copy' button. A couple of things may happen at this point. If your
browser is set up to handle pdf documents, your browser window will
fill with the homework set in it as a document. In this case, go to
the icon 'file' and choose the 'print' option. If your browser is
not properly configured, you may get an alert message asking what to
with the file. In this case, you can save the file to disk (so that
you can print it at a later time), choose an application to view or
print the file (e.g. GSview or dropPS for postscript or Acrobat
Reader for pdf). Any of the computer consultants show be able to
help you with this kind of problem.
- Look at a summary of your WeBWorK homework
scores.
This is the second section of the page. If you
click on the button 'Get Summary', you will see your current scores
for all available problem sets.
- If you are printing out a problem set or looking at a summary of
your homework scores, you are done. If you are viewing a problem
set via Netscape, you will see a page with the problems in the set
you chose. To view and/or answer a problem, click on the number of
the problem and click on the 'Get Problem' button. Notice that
there are four modes of viewing the problem: 'text',
'formatted-text' and 'typeset', adn typeset2. It is best to view
the problem using 'typeset2' mode, which should be the default. Once
you choose a problem and click on the 'Get Problem' button, you will
see the text of the problem with boxes for your answers. Enter your
answers and click on the 'Submit Answer' button. If you are working
on a problem set that is already closed, you will have the option to
see the correct answer or a solution if one is available (currently
only a few problems have solutions available). To see the correct
answer and/or solution, just check the box(es) and click on the
'Submit Answer' button (you do not have to enter an answer to see
the correct answer or solution). Once you have submitted an answer,
you will be told whether your answer is correct or not. If not, you
can try again. After you've tried a problem, you can either go to
the next problem, the previous problem, or see the list of the
problems again.
- If you want to check the status of your
problems (e.g. to double check that your answers have been
recorded), use the "Prob. List" button at the top of the
page to see the problem list page.
- When you are finished, log
out using the "Logout" button at the bottom of the page.
- That's all, folks!
IV. Important facts to know
- What to do if you have problems with WeBWorK:
- If you have a problem logging in, contact your instructor.
- If you have a problem printing out a set, ask a consultant
at a computer lab. If you don't get sufficient help,
contact your instructor or TA.
- If you have questions on specific homework problems or if you have
comments about WeBWorK that you think can help us
make WeBWorK better, click on the 'Feedback'
button on any of the pages of WeBWorK.
- If you are logged on to WeBWorK for longer that 30 minutes
without any activity,
you will be asked to log in again. This is a security measure. You
can resume your work after you logged back in. All your results from
the last log in will be saved.
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