Category Archives: Announcements

WeBWorK3 Development Workshop – Thursday June 16, 2022

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Title: WW3 development workshop

When: Thursday June 16th starting at 12pm (noon) EDT.

Virtually via Zoom.

A number of WeBWorK developers have been busy over the past year working on WeBWorK3, a complete redesign of the user interface and database engine of your favorite open-source online homework system.  The approach is to build the new version from the ground up using modern web-development tools in order to overcome many of the limitations of the current software.

WeBWorK3 is still a long way from being ready to be used with students, but if you are interested in diving into seeing how it is being developed as well as some hands-on running of the development code, come check out this workshop.

Here’s what to expect:

  • An overview of webwork3 including: 
    • The database, db interaction level, API web server, UI interface and how they function together.
    • Languages used in WeBWorK3 (perl, javascript/typescript, html, CSS/SCSS)
    • Frameworks used in WeBWorK3 (mojolicious, DBIx::Class, vue, quasar)
  • Installing the development tools needed to run webwork3
  • Installing and running webwork3 in a development environment.
  • How to get involved in the project.
  • Next steps.

This will probably be at least two or three hours in length and be quite hands-on in getting everyone up and running. 

If in the past you haven’t wanted to dive into developing webwork because of needed to learn perl, all of the client-side (user interface) code uses javascript/typescript, vue and quasar, all are currently are among the standard ways of coding for the web. 

This is not going to be a how-to on using webwork3, because everything is in development.  We hope in the somewhat near future to have something to show to the general public.

If you are interested in attending this, please email pstaab@fitchburgstate.edu for the connection information.

TWP at MAA Mathfest Pavilion Wednesday 8/4- Friday 8/6

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Dear WeBWorK Community,

The WeBWorK Project will be at the MAA Pavilion during Mathfest!

Join us if you would like to learn more about:

  • Using WeBWorK in the classroom, for homework, and exams.
  • Hosting options and training/professional development workshops for your institution. Representatives from Runestone and Rationarium will be on hand to answer your questions.
  • Problem authoring.
  • Navigating the Open Problem Library to find content.
  • Projects involving LibreTexts and PreTeXt.
  • WeBWorK for non-math courses.

Dates and times:

Wednesday  (today) 2-3pm mountain (4-5 eastern)
Thursday 2-3pm mountain (4-5 eastern)
Friday 2-3pm mountain (4-5 eastern)

All the best,

The WeBWorK Project (TWP)

WeBWorK 2.16 Release Candidate!

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The WeBWorK Project is pleased to announce the first release candidate of WeBWorK 2.16.  This release contains a number of bug fixes, security patches and new features, including:

  • A manual problem grader, which allows you to change a student’s grade and add comments directly from the problem page.
  • When a student clicks on a timed gateway quiz, they now get a confirmation dialog informing them of the time limit before starting the quiz.
  • The ability to use tikx images in PG problems.

For the full list, see the Release Notes.

The new version is already in use at multiple institutions.  It can be obtained by checking out the WeBWorK-2.16 and PG-2.16 branches from GitHub.  If you are installing from scratch, consult the installation manual.  If you are upgrading an existing installation, consult the upgrade instructions.

You can get help from the community with installation or usage using the online forums.  You can also look for us on Slack.

Please report any bugs to https://github.com/openwebwork/webwork2/issues.

Coming Soon: WeBWorK 2.16 and its New Grading Feature!

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From WeBWorK contributor Glenn Rice:

I have reviewed exams in WeBWorK for several years now.  The process was
very tedious.  I opened a student’s exam in one browser window, the
settings for that exam in another, and an email message in my email
client for comments.  To grade the exam I would need to check
“CorrectAnswers” and click “Check Answers” for each problem, and
determine if partial credit were needed, and then add a comment to the
email.  After completing that students exam, I would send the email, and
then have to set up another student’s exam, settings, and email message.

I wanted something in WeBWorK that had everything on one page and the
correct answers to just be there.  So the idea for a new problem grader
was born.  I had seen a comments in the forums about the experiences of
others in manually grading homework and exams in WeBWorK, and so I knew
I wasn’t the only one that would like a tool of this type.

I talked to Michael Gage and told him about this idea.  He liked the
idea, and offered suggestions about things he would like to see in such
a tool.  So here it is for the WeBWorK community to enjoy!

TWP Summer 2021 Code Camps

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We are super pleased to announce three TWP working meetings for Summer 2021.

WeBWorK Web Presence Virtual Working Meeting: June 14-16, 2021. The WeBWorK Project is hosting a virtual code camp to modernize and organize the web presence of WeBWorK. Programming skills are not required to participate, as much of the work will involve editing web pages in a number of simple formats.

OPL Code Camp: July 6-9, 2021. The WeBWorK Project is hosting a virtual code camp to expand the current OPL taxonomy to incorporate topics from the fields of Chemistry, Engineering, and Physics. Familiarity with coding problems is not required for participants, as our efforts will center on sorting and classifying existing problems.

PG Code Camp: July 20-22, 2021. The WeBWorK Project is hosting a virtual code camp to modernize and organize the PG code base which facilitates authoring of WeBWorK PG questions. Repairing and uniformizing the PG infrastructure and integrating tools for new technologies and ideas is long overdue.

Free NCSCE Webinar: Grassroots Histories and the Arts and Sciences 

This Webinar will feature quick, high impact things we can do now in our current classes that will develop our students’ powers of visual, scientific and verbal expression.  The idea driving this project is empowering our students to record from the grassroots level how the pandemic has affected their lives, to help themselves and others see and understand across cultural divides and to argue for social justice.  The project starts modestly with teachers and faculty in courses across the curriculum offering students extra credit for creating their own Grassroots Histories.  Our goal is to help students look at their everyday lives with the eyes of writers, visual artists, scientists and historians.  The grassroots histories our students create may eventually become part of the historical narrative of our times.

Presenters: Frank Wattenberg (U.S. Military Academy (emeritus), Marianna Bonanome and Katherine Poirier (New York City College of Technology)

For more information and to register: https://ncsce.wildapricot.org/NCSCEEvents

THIS EVENT IS FREE, BUT DONATIONS ARE WELCOME TO SUPPORT THE WEBINARS: https://ncsce.wildapricot.org/DonationForm/

LibreTexts Query and Adapt – WeBWorK Compatible Infrastructure

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LibreTexts is celebrating OpenEd Week with a series of webinars.

One of them is to introduce a new WeBWorK compatible infrastructure:

Tuesday, March 2nd: 10:30-11:30 (PST): Delmar Larsen

Adapt and Query – Introducing the LibreTexts Comprehensive Summative Homework Assessment System

“To complement OER textbooks, we will discuss the development of the QUERY and ADAPT online assessment infrastructure. Underlying both technologies is the formative and summative applications of H5P, WeBWorK and IMathAS technologies that allow faculty to use online technologies as summative assessments to augment textbook (summatively), to embed into LMS or to be used as in-class clicker systems.”

Nominations Open for The WeBWorK Project Executive Committee

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The WeBWorK Project (TWP) seeks nominations for positions on its Executive Committee.  People who have been active in promoting and using WeBWorK are encouraged to nominate similar individuals for open positions on the Board.

The Executive Committee of TWP consists of the following:

  • President-elect is to be selected this year. A person selected for this position with start serving immediately and will transition to President in 2022 and serve until 2024. 
  • President is Robin Cruz.  This remains the same until 2022 at which time she will transition to Past-President.
  • Community Manager is Marianna Bonanome. This remains the same until 2022.
  • Secretary is Tim Flowers.  This remains the same until 2022.
  • Treasurer is to be selected this year and serves until 2023.  Mike Gage currently serves in this position.
  • Technical Manager is to be selected this year and serves until 2023. Danny Glin currently serves in this position.
  • Marketing Director is Monica VanDieren.  This is an appointed position and remains the same for a long time.
  • Past President is John Travis.  I will rotate off the Executive Committee after the election of new officers.

So, we need nominations for President-Elect, Treasurer, and Technical Manager.

Please consider making nominations for any of these positions by sending an email to John Travis at travis@mc.edu.  The deadline for making nominations is noon Friday, February 26, 2021.  

Details on voting will be provided in this forum once the slate of nominees is complete.

Thanks!

TWP at the JMM, Jan. 6-8, 2021

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The WeBWorK Project will have a virtual exhibit as part of the Mathematical Association of America exhibit booth at the #JMM2021 American Mathematical Society Joint Mathematics Meetings. Please stop by to see us!

The following Zoom sessions are part of our exhibit:

  • WeBWorK Problem Authoring Session, Wed. Jan 6, noon-1 pm (MST), 2-3 pm (EST)
  • Introduction to WeBWorK, Thurs. Jan 7, noon-1 pm (MST), 2-3 pm (EST)
  • WeBWorK Symposium (BYOB) – meet up with the WeBWorK community, Thurs. Jan 7, 6 -7 pm (MST), 8 – 9 pm (EST)
  • WeBWorK Show-and-Tell – Share your favorite WeBWorK problems/feature, Fri. Jan 8, noon-1 pm (MST), 2-3 pm (EST)

Ask your questions in one of the Zoom sessions or asynchronously through our Slack channel (thewebworkproject.slack.com),