User Stories

This is a list of basic tasks desired by WeBWorK users (Students, instructors, administrators, etc.), as motivated by [1]. The intention is for this document to motivate back-end and API development.

Note that this is not intended to be a list of current functionality. It is a list of tasks that users desire to be able to do in the system.

Please feel free to add any missing tasks to this list.

Students

• Problem/Problem Sets
  • View the list of my problem sets
  • View the list of problems in a problem set
  • Print my assignment
  • View a problem
  • Attempt a problem (enter answers and get feedback)
  • View my grades on the problems in a problem set
  • View my overall grades for all problem sets
  • View my performance compared to students in this class or this group from the current course or past classes
  • Get a new version of a problem
  • View my past answers to a problem
  • 'Save Progress' button for use with whiteboard or calculator resources
  • View assignments from different courses on same page
  • Sort assignments (e.g. by Course, by type, by completion or assigned date)

• User Management
  • Change my email address
  • Change my password

• Communication
  • Email the instructor

Instructors

• User management
  • Add a user (or a few users) manually
  • Import users from a file
  • Update a student's information (email, name, id number, password, etc.)
  • Act as a student (see what an individual student sees)
  • Delete a student
  • List all students
  • List all students in a given section / recitation
  • Assign problem sets to one or more users
  • View grades / progress for one or more users
  • View a student's past answers on a problem
  • Export list of users
  • Create a group of students by hand or through rules. Default group is one class.

• Communication
  • Email a student / group of students / all students

• Problem Sets
  • Create a new problem set
  • Change the details of a problem set
    • Set Name
    • Open, close, answer dates
    • Whether to show hints / solutions, and when
    • Other set-specific parameters
  • Specify different types of assignments, with separate grading and assignment rules:
    • Normal Homework Assignment (assigned to everyone in a (class or group), scored as normal homework)
    • Prep Assignment (assigned to specific groups, not part of normal homework)
    • Follow-up Prep Assignment (opened upon completion of Prep Assignment)
    • In-Class Problems (paired to in-class lecture, option for everyone to have the same seed. Different than normal homework.)
    • In-Class Group / Peer Problems (specific problem assigned to specific group for during class.)
    • Gateway Quiz problem set
    • In-Class Quiz or In-Class exam set (scores distinguished differently from normal homework assignments)
    • Placement Testing Mechanism (e.g. student registration, reporting of scores and post-quiz message)
  • Add problems / problem pools to a problem set
  • Change settings for an individual problem within a problem set
    • Number of Attempts
    • Value
    • When to show hints (if available)
  • Assign problem sets to one or more users (possibly based on user criteria such as section / recitation)
  • Show or hide problem set to students. (visible/hidden)
  • View grades / progress for one or more problem sets
  • Export grades for one or more problem sets
  • Set whether a problem / problem set should be reseeded after a certain number of attempts
  • Import / Export homework sets
    • Export a problem set with all of its auxiliary files and transmit it to a colleague.
  • Regrade a problem within a problem set after modification
  • Set default values for settings to apply to all newly created homework sets
  • Assign problem sets to students in specified group
  • Turn on / off universal resources for students:
    • R
    • Sage
    • whiteboard
    • graphing calculator (especially with whiteboard)
    • geometry software (geogebra, jsxgraph)
    • simple calculator

• Problem Pools
  • Create a problem pool
  • Add / remove problems from a problem pool

• Problems
  • Edit a problem
  • Create a new problem
  • Copy a problem
  • Upload/Download one or more problems
  • View available problems
  • Search for problems
    • By topic
    • By author
    • By institution
    • By type (multiple choice, numerical, symbolic)
  • Tag problems with relevant metadata
  • View a problem with a given seed (view a new version of a problem)
  • Add a problem to a problem set
  • Package a problem with all of its auxiliary files so that it can be shipped to a colleague (probably as part of a problem set)

• Course management
  • Archive a copy of the course for safety backup or for use next semester.

• Analytics
  • Store student performance for non-webwork assessments (e.g. paper/pencil tests, quizzes, etc.)
  • Provide statistics and performance by students on assignments for specified group(s) and specified course(s)

Administrators

• Courses
  • Create a course
  • Change the name of a course
  • Make a course available/unavailable to students
  • Copy content (users, sets, problems) from one course to another
  • Back up a course / courses
  • Restore a course from backup
  • Add / Remove / Edit users within a course