New Authors landing page

This guide contains information about authoring WeBWorK problems.

• If you're just starting out, see the Problem Authoring Background Information and sample problems first.
• If you're working on a problem in a specific area you may find the more advanced templates useful.
• If you're working on a problem and want to find out how to do one particular thing the index of problem techniques may be useful.
• Use the online calculators to try things out.

Manuals and HOWTOs

• Problem Authoring Background Information
• Basic Perl syntax — PG is based on Perl, so it is important to know some basic Perl syntax.
• Problem Authoring Best Practices for problem authoring.
• How BEGIN_TEXT...END_TEXT blocks work
• MathObjects, an object system for manipulating mathematics in WeBWorK problems.
• Tagging Problems with metadata for indexing and searching.
• PGLabs, online calculators for immediate display of MathObjects and PG markup language (PGML) These are very helpful for learning the syntax.
• SequentialProblems revealing the problem one step at a time
• Converting CAPA problems for use with WeBWorK
• What to do if you find a bug in a problem

Sample Problems

• Index of Sample Problems
  • Template 1 (the basic structure of a WeBWorK PG problem file)
  • SampleProblem1a (old-style, non-MathObjects example)
  • Template 2 (formulas, multiple choice, and string entry problems)
  • Template 3 (dynamically generated graphs)
• More Advanced Sample Problems

Reference Documents

• Index of Problem Techniques
• PG macro/library documentation from CVS
• Notes on training authors, and suggestions for further documentation-- Sam Hathaway
• The Good Questions project at Cornell University [1]