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)
  • view completion status of each problem in an assignment while working on one of its problems
  • get context-sensitive help
    • info about type of answer: numeric (real, rational), functional expression, equation
    • info about necessary accuracy
      • programed or spontaneuous popup
      • decimal places vs significant figures
      • absolute or relative tolerance
  • Get a new, blank version of an assignment for review for an exam
    • View list of acceptable units

• Hardcopy of homework sets
  • Print hardcopy of active homework set as a supplement to viewing the homework on line
  • Print hardcopy of a completed (past answer date) homework set for review
    • Option to print with or without hints.
    • Option to print with or without solutions.

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

• Communication
  • Email the instructor

• User Interface
  • Ability to customize the interface
    • Ability to rearrange and resize components
    • Ability to modify theme

Instructors

• User management
  • Add a user (or a few users) manually
  • Import users from a file
  • Update a student's information (login, email, name, id number, password, etc.)
    • Student status that includes "enrolled," but "disallow logins" (e.g., for old semesters). This might be a characteristic of a course rather than a student.
  • 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.
  • Edit a characteristic or characteristics of many students (e.g., set student status to inactive/drop)
  • Have students generate ad hoc groups on the fly for working cooperatively on WeBWorK problems in class

• Communication
  • Email a student / group of students / all students
  • Provide a chat interface with other members of the class with problem threads.

• Problem Sets
  • Create a new problem set
  • Delete problem sets (choose problem sets and be presented with a window that lists problem sets to be deleted and has a "confirm delete" button)
  • Set the order in which the sets appear on the homework page. (and/or set the rules that determine this order)
  • Change the details of a problem set
    • Set Name
    • Open, due, answer dates
    • Reduced credit enable/period
    • Give an individual student, or group of students an extension of the due date.
    • Re-open a closed homework set for all students and set a new global due date. Should this override all local due dates (i.e., homework extensions given to individuals)
      • Suggested solution: When resetting a global due date a pop-up window warns if there are any individual overrides. The instructor has a chance to adjust these individual extensions or not as the situation warrants.
    • Whether to show hints / solutions, and when(should this be decided by the problem (e.g. PG code) or should it be set by the environment (webwork2)? Some combination?
    • Merge two or more assignments.
    • Edit the set header file (there should be only one set header file for both html and tex)
    • 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 (how is this defined?)
      • Timed Test/Quiz problem sets
      • Userset Versioning of Test/Quiz problem sets
      • Test/Quiz problem sets composed of groups of problems (e.g., sections, with characteristics---e.g., problem order---that can be set by section, but the sections appearing in a specified order)
      • Allow restriction of student access to scores and previously submitted work
      • Hooks for Respondus and SoftwareSecure.com type workstation isolation software.
    • 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)
      • Read test scores/results for tests that run over-time and aren't otherwise allowed to be submitted
    • Master Type Sets (future problems or groups of problems determined by a ruleset that uses results on previous problems or groups of problems)---this should be able to play with testing and homework assignment types
  • Add problems / problem pools to a problem set
  • multi-stage scoring
    • current: reduced-credit period is offset backwards from dueDate
    • also: bonus-credit period is offset backwards from dueDate
    • also: full-credit with due-date, extend with reduced-credit for specified duration
    • full-scoring upto n tires before dueDate, then show ans/sol and reseed with reduced-credit before dueDate
  • 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
  • Option to log unrecorded attempts submitted after due date has passed.
  • Assign the same random seed to all students for a particular problem or an entire homework set

• 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
    • identify/exclude problems already used
      • in this assignment
      • in any assignment for this course
      • for a recycled course: identify when used in past
    • enable a virtual library of problems
      • used by this instructor in previous years
      • used by colleagues, now or in past
  • Search for problems
    • By topic
      • DBcourse, DBchapter, DBsection
      • keyword(s)
      • text--author (editi on), chapter, section
    • By type (multiple choice, numerical, symbolic)
    • by component: has solution, uses MathObjects,
    • By author or directory
    • By institution
    • enable instructor preferences for starting new search
  • Tag problems with relevant metadata
  • Tag problems with private metadata (like favorites (stars), or when last used, or other instructor-specific information)
  • 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)
  • Report a bug in a problem
  • report a common confusion with a problem

• Course management
  • disable "Show Solution" for all students --- primarily for use in huge classes where fraternities have comprehensive solution files
  • Archive a copy of the course for safety backup or for use next semester.
  • reuse a course
    • revise dates: open, close, show ans & sol
    • revise dates, automatically following some rules + standard holidays factored in
    • treat collection of problems used previously as a virtual library
  • Specify desired notation for
    • Vectors
      • Angle versus round brackets
      • Arrow versus bar versus bold
      • Step functions
      • ijk notation versus coordinate form
    • Complex numbers (i versus j)
  • Download scores in a format that can be easily imported into an LMS gradebook

• 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)
  • Provide performance across courses

• User Interface
  • Ability to customize the interface
    • Ability to rearrange and resize components
    • Ability to modify theme

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
• Use WeBWorK function calls in external scripts
• System (with aid from IT expert)
  • backup crucial data
  • monitor important logfiles
  • identify which tasks to handle via cron, which by-hand
• Easily import student demographic data from institutional data feeds.
• enable easily-understood date display ($studetDateDisplayFormat !!)

Authors

• obtain data about common errors on a problem, perhaps gathered only from courses on an MAA site
• digest of student queries/complaints/praise (a selection of Email Instructor items)

Developers

• Add a feature to webwork. E.G. Add the achievement system or some other feature which interacts with webwork in a non trivial way and requires persistence in such a way that it doesn't break installations of people who aren't using the feature.

• Automated assignments for students taking placement tests
• Sharing of problem pools
• (Easy generation / inclusion of additional tables: meta-data about problem pools, how to define student groups, ... so that these can be shared across institutions and installations of WeBWorK)
• Model courses
• Master courses (e.g. institution standard course, assign assignments from master course to specific course)

extended comments

• A course-level schedule object could allow flexibility for an Instructor's tool to provide flexible management of dates for assignments together with associated actions.
  • dates for a single assignment (some selection/extension of the following)
    • visible to students
    • open
    • dueDate
    • date to show answers
    • date to show solutions
    • date ending opportunity for bonus credit
    • date ending opportunity for reduced credit
  • flexible management of dates
    • specify which event (previous list) has explicit calendar date
    • specify delta-times for all other events (allowing "infinity" to hide all solutions from all students)
    • specify fractions for bonus or reduced credit
    • to simplify reuse of a course, allow use of a meta-schedule specifying just dates for the controlling event (but also allow revision of that during the term)
    • select alternatives for summarizing the configuration to students (e.g., show text about dueDate together with icons indicating alternative credit stuff)
  • interface should clarify hierarchy for configuring this complexity, perhaps extra tab in Course Configuration which modifies course.conf as a record within an archived course