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Amanda Danforth - Course Environment

Amanda Danforth - Course Environment

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
inactiveTopicCourse Environment topic started 8/1/2002; 7:03:07 AM
last post 8/1/2002; 7:03:07 AM
userAmanda Danforth - Course Environment  blueArrow
8/1/2002; 7:03:07 AM (reads: 2412, responses: 0)

COURSE ENVIRONMENT

Information on how to correctly edit the webworkCourse.ph file

QUICK OVERVIEW

There are a few course specific variables that should be changed for a WeBWorK course. Some of these include: feedback addresses, how you configure statistical data on the Professor Page, and allowing a professor to have a "professor view" of the source file names of each problem.

Also in the webworkCourse.ph file there are many variables that have been defined using course_webwork_setup.pl Depending on how your system is set up, you probably don't have to edit these variables.

FEEDBACK ADDRESS

The first variable defined in webworkCourse.ph is

$Global::feedbackAddress = 'apizer@math.rochester.edu, gage@math.rochester.edu';

Edit this line accordingly so that feedback from your students goes to you and possibly your TAs and not to Pizer and Gage.

Also make sure to include the following lines for the feedback address:

$Global::defaultFrom = $Global::feedbackAddress;
$Global::defaultReply = $Global::feedbackAddress;

This ensures that replies to the student's feedback goes to everyone defined in the $Global::feedbackAddress. In other words, this just sends copies of the correspondence between student and professor to the appropriate people defined above.

SMTP SENDER

Next enter a single valid email address for the smtpSender

$Global::smtpSender = 'apizer@math.rochester.edu';

The smtp mail server (defined in Global.pm) requires a valid single email address. Normally this is set to the address of the course administrator. Undeliverable email from the Send Mail page will be returned to the smtpSender address. If you don't set this the webmaster's email address from Global.pm will be used.

 

ALLOWING MAIL

If you want to write essay type problems or questionnaires where the results are emailed back, you have to authorize the email addresses here by uncommenting and editing the next line.

$PG_environment{'ALLOW_MAIL_TO'} = ['apizer@math.rochester.edu'];

OVERALL STATISTICS

On the Professor page, you can view statistical data on problem sets for the whole course by section or by recitation. You may want to exclude certain sections or recitations (e.g. those containing practice users, TA's, or professors) from the overall statistics. Statistics for excluded sections are reported separately. List the names of all sections and recitations to be excluded in a coma separated list, e.g.

@excluse_these_sections_from_overall_statistics = ('', 'T.A.', 'Prof section');
@excluse_these_recitations_from_overall_statistics = ('');

If this list is empty or commented out, no sections will be excluded.

PROFESSOR VIEW

Finally, you should give yourself the "professor view", i.e. when you view a problem or download a set, the file names of the source files will be listed. To do this, uncomment (i.e. remove the #) the following line in the file /ww/webwork/courses/mth141/webworkCourse.ph . Replace 'leeza', etc. by appropriate login names.

$PG_environment{'PRINT_FILE_NAMES_FOR'} = ['leeza','apizer','gage'];

DESTROY AND REBUILD

In the private course, you will mostly likely want to edit the line (located near the end of the file)

$allowDestroyRebuildSets = 0; to

$allowDestroyRebuildSets = 1;

This will allow you to destroy and rebuild sets, which become important if you edit set definition files (e.g. remove a problem or change the due date) after a problem set has already been built. NOTE: There are better ways of removing a problem and/or changing the due date on the professor page. See Tutorial on managing a WeBWorK course for more information regarding these features.

However, it must be noted that this should only occur in a private course. Destroying and Rebuilding a set removes all associated data (and .sco files) from the database. The reconstructed sets will have problems with different psvn's and seeds and all scoring information will be removed from the webwork-database and .sco files. This is detrimental to students in a public course. Be very careful.

You can also do editing of the webworkCourse.ph file from the professor page after you have your course setup. See Housekeeping Utilities (option 14) in the professor page for more information.

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