Test files for homework environments


This page contains links to files that we are offering to a variety of homework delivery environments to see what might work best for us.

We are looking for an online HW system in which to input our materials for our new NEXUS/Physics course). We need the following features:

 

HW

1. We need to be able to put in our own problems, preferably just by copying in HTML files.
2. Students need to be able to respond to those problems by entering text, equations, and diagrams (possibly done with an outside system).
3. TAs need to be able to see all the responses for each problem (preferably anonymously) and enter grades and comments for them.
4. Those grades need to be collected in a gradebook that can be exported, preferably to Excel.

 

Readings/JiTT

1. Students read two or three webpages before each lecture. They need to be able to write a summary of those readings in the system and to ask a question.
2. Anyone who has entered anything into the system should be automatically given some predetermined score for doing it.
3. The instructor needs to be able to view all of the entries by item and change the grade (to 0 if someone has just blown it off by putting in arbitrary text).

4.  Desired option:  The students need to see all (or only instructor selected) entries and also see instructor answers.  Questions should be anonymized so students do not know who asked what question

5.  Desired option:  The students should be able to vote up other questions after the deadline to make it more likely that those questions will be answered. (similar to the coursera question board)

 

 

For both

1. We need to be able to set a deadline and cut off the input after that deadline.
2. We need to be able to open the system for students in a case-by-case basis to let input in after the deadline.
3. We need to be able to print all the responses for each problem (with student names) into a PDF file.

 

Here are some samples. The readings do not actually have to be imbedded in the environment, but that might provide a stabler situation than our continuing to maintain a Wiki. We need to see how the environment would handle links to images, videos (e.g. YouTube), and LaTeX equations.

 

Readings

 

Newton 2 as a stepping rule

Flat-earth gravity

Nernst potential

 

Homework Problems

The bulldog on the skateboard (link to a web problem)

Cell membrane model (link to a problem with use of equations)

Force on a woodpecker (link to a Wiki problem with calculations)

Sensing molecular signals (needs to show a video from a link)

Polymers and entropy (problem needs a table filled out with equation)