WeBWorK
is a system that allows professors to put the homework problems on the web and allows
students to solve these problems over the web.
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
allows students to try to find out what they did wrong and hopefully to understand the
topic of the question better.
Each WeBWorK problem set is individualized (each student has a different version
of each problem, for example the numerical values in the formulas may be slightly
different).
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.
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.
1. Find a computer with access to a browser, e.g. MSIE. It can be either your own or one in any of the computer labs on campus.
2. Open browser and go to the WebWork page for your class or to this page.
3. On that page you will see names of current WeBWorK courses. Find the name of your course and click on it.
4. 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.
5. This will take
you to a login page. Enter your login name and password, and click on the 'Continue'
button.
Usually, your login name is the same as your first letter of your first
name followed by you last name (ex. Robert Smith is rsmith).
6. Your initial password is your social security number including dashes.
7. If your login is
incorrect, you will be told so, and you can return to the login page and try again.
If you login is correct you will see a page where you can do following:
o Look
at and do the problems in a set via your browser.
To do Set 1, for example, click on the line in the box that starts with 'Set 1...'. 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). When the answers are available, you have the option of looking at correct
answers when viewing a problem.
o Get
a printout of the problem set.
To print out Set 1, for example, first choose the
download type. If you do not know which one works on your computer, try one and if you get
an error message, try another. In general (this is not always so!!!) postscript format
often works better than pdf format. If you are working on your own computer and do not
have the software that takes care of printing or viewing problems, you have two choices.
First, if you don't have a printer, you might want to go to a university computer lab and
print out the current homework set there. You only need to print out a problem set once.
From then on, you can enter the answers over the web on your own computer. Second, you can
download software that will allow you to view and print the whole problem set. The links
to the software that would allow you to do that can be found on the main page of the
course or at the bottom of the page Welcome
to WeBWorK.
After choosing one of the download types, click on the line in the box that starts with
'Set 1...'. Then click on the 'Get hard copy' button. You will get one of three things at
this point. It may be a small window that will have DropPS written on it, which will tell
you that it is printing the document. In this case, the homework set is already being
printed out on one of the printers in the lab. You may also get a separate window with the
homework set in it as a document. In this case, go to the icon 'file' and choose the
'print' option. Finally, 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), or you might want
to go to a different computer if you are in the university computer lab. If you are
working at your own computer, you might want to download the necessary software as
explained above.
You can use the preferences command of your web browser to configure your browser to
automatically transfer the postscript files to the appropriate application for viewing and
printing.
o
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.
8. 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 three modes of viewing the problem: 'text', 'formatted-text' and 'typeset'. Text output can be hard to read if a problem contains complicated mathematical formulas, so it is better to view the problem using 'formatted-text' or 'typeset' mode. 'formatted-text' mode is usually acceptable and is quick and reliable. One caveat is that you need to set the encoding properly (e.g. Western(MacRoman) for Mac Netscape) for best results. 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.
9. 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.
10. When you are finished, log out using the "Logout" button at the bottom of the page.
11. That's all, folks! Should you still have questions, be sure to check out the FAQ for Students.
· What to do if you have problems with WeBWorK:
o If you have a problem logging in, contact your instructor.
o If you have a problem printing out a set, ask a consultant at a university computer lab. If you don't get sufficient help, contact your instructor.
o 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.