Dear Colleagues,
I wonder if anyone is using/knows about Rogawski's attempt to integrate with WeBWorK.
The publisher's representative tells us that
1) They have an index of 1500 NPL problems correlated with topics in their text.
2) They have coded 2500 of the text problems available as a zip file to institutions that adopt their text.
We've been using Stewart for a number of years, but this would tempt me to seriously consider switching to Rogawski. I'd like to know if anyone has investigated this more fully than I have at this point though.
thanks, Hal
I work for the publisher and can answer questions about this.
Dear Sam,
If you could post information here, that would be great. Our school is also considering switching calculus textbooks and Rogawski is one book under consideration. We use WeBWorK so if Rogawski's book is linked with WeBWorK problems, that would be a great advantage.
Best,
Tom
If you could post information here, that would be great. Our school is also considering switching calculus textbooks and Rogawski is one book under consideration. We use WeBWorK so if Rogawski's book is linked with WeBWorK problems, that would be a great advantage.
Best,
Tom
Hi everyone,
We have coded over 1000 exercises from the first edition. All of them are algorithmic and all include solutions. All were written using MathObjects and contain metadata tags so that they can be found by topic or by chapter and section using the Library Browser. We distribute them via a tarball by request, and we are considering other distribution methods.
We are adding 1300 new questions from the second edition. They will also all be algorithmic and have full solutions. You can contact Catriona Kaplan at CKaplan@whfreeman.com for more information.
-sam
We have coded over 1000 exercises from the first edition. All of them are algorithmic and all include solutions. All were written using MathObjects and contain metadata tags so that they can be found by topic or by chapter and section using the Library Browser. We distribute them via a tarball by request, and we are considering other distribution methods.
We are adding 1300 new questions from the second edition. They will also all be algorithmic and have full solutions. You can contact Catriona Kaplan at CKaplan@whfreeman.com for more information.
-sam
Hi Hal,
This is true - in fact, Freeman has very recently added problems for the 2nd edition to a branch of the NPL, which we will soon move into the NPL proper.
My last communication with them was last week - they have hired people to test the quality of their problems, and when they are satisfied with the results we will move them into the NPL trunk.
Freeman has made a big commitment to WeBWorK as part of their strategy for this book. Hopefully other books and other publishers will follow!
Jason
This is true - in fact, Freeman has very recently added problems for the 2nd edition to a branch of the NPL, which we will soon move into the NPL proper.
My last communication with them was last week - they have hired people to test the quality of their problems, and when they are satisfied with the results we will move them into the NPL trunk.
Freeman has made a big commitment to WeBWorK as part of their strategy for this book. Hopefully other books and other publishers will follow!
Jason
I had a temporary account for their webwork server a couple of years ago and I was able to look at the problems. It seemed like a nice collection. If I remember correctly, the problems had solutions as well.
It would be nice to have these problems in the national problem library.
Nandor
It would be nice to have these problems in the national problem library.
Nandor
We used Rogawski for our Calculus I course a couple of years ago. At that point they had just finished coding their first set of problems with the textbook. Back then a lot of the problems lacked quality control (there were a significant amount of errors, and some poorly worded questions).
More recent versions of their collection have corrected a lot of these problems, but we are still running into the odd problem which is poorly worded or has an incorrect answer.
As others have already mentioned, one of the upsides is that all of the questions have detailed solutions, and they are keyed directly to sections in the textbook.
Danny
More recent versions of their collection have corrected a lot of these problems, but we are still running into the odd problem which is poorly worded or has an incorrect answer.
As others have already mentioned, one of the upsides is that all of the questions have detailed solutions, and they are keyed directly to sections in the textbook.
Danny
We have way better coders this time around and a solid testing methodology, so quality on the second edition questions will be of much higher quality than the original questions.
-sam
P.S.: Danny has been invaluable in finding and reporting issues with the first edition questions. Thanks, Danny!
-sam
P.S.: Danny has been invaluable in finding and reporting issues with the first edition questions. Thanks, Danny!
Hi.
This thread is a little old now, but I am hoping someone will see my post. How do I get access to the Rogawski Second Edition problems? I'm trying to adopt WeBWork for some of my classes which all use the Rogawski calculus book and having access to those problems would be awesome. Do I have to do something directly with the publisher?
Thanks for the help!
- Amelia
This thread is a little old now, but I am hoping someone will see my post. How do I get access to the Rogawski Second Edition problems? I'm trying to adopt WeBWork for some of my classes which all use the Rogawski calculus book and having access to those problems would be awesome. Do I have to do something directly with the publisher?
Thanks for the help!
- Amelia
You can get the problems using SVN from here:
Nandor,
Thanks for the link! I have used svn a few times, but my experience is limited and it would help, if you have any suggestions as for the most efficient way for me to download the problems?
Thanks,
Amelia
Thanks for the link! I have used svn a few times, but my experience is limited and it would help, if you have any suggestions as for the most efficient way for me to download the problems?
Thanks,
Amelia
The SVN has problems from the first edition of Rogawski, generously donated by Freeman. Freeman has developed new and supposedly more polished problems for the second edition. For now at least you will need to get these directly from the publisher. I don't think you will have any difficulties, they have been eager to work with WeBWorK users in general and particularly with those who are using their Rogawski calculus text. :-)
Freeman's director of online homework systems is Sam Hathaway, a graduate of the University of Rochester ('04) and one of the main developers of WeBWorK2 from around 2002 until around 2008.
-- Mike
Thanks Mike!
- Amelia
- Amelia
New Question:
I made contact with Freeman and got the 2e Rogawski problems. Now I can't find any information (I suspect I don't search well) about how to now access these lovely .pg files that I have. How do I access those problems?
- Amelia
Hi Amelia,
If you are on your own server, you can do something analogous to http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Installation_Manual_for_2.4_on_Ubuntu_10.04 sections Set_up_the_Rochester_and_Union_Libraries and Install and Set Up the CAPA Library (in the CAPA case ignore all the macro's etc which you don't need).
If you are on e.g. the MAA server, you can do the analogous thing except you would put the problems under the templates directory of your course unless Freeman would allow them in an area open to all in which case MAA staff would have to install them.
If you need more detailed help, post again.
Arnie
Arnie,
Hi. I am, for now, working on the MAA server and I do need more detail. To give you some idea, I still don't know how to access the templates directory of my course, much less how to then run the commands to set it up.
I have set up a few assignments using the NPL, but that's as far as I have gotten.
Thanks!
Amelia
Hi. I am, for now, working on the MAA server and I do need more detail. To give you some idea, I still don't know how to access the templates directory of my course, much less how to then run the commands to set it up.
I have set up a few assignments using the NPL, but that's as far as I have gotten.
Thanks!
Amelia
Hi Amelia,
There are two ways we can give you access to the Rogawski problems and I think you need to contact Freeman and see what they want to do since you are on the MAA server with a lot of other people.
The first and best way is to set them up outside of your course just as the other libraries are. If we do this we can set a link to the Rogawski problems from within your templates directory which will give you access to the problems in exactly the same way you access other problems. I'm pretty sure only someone (e.g. MAA staff) who has access to the server can create the link so the problems should be restricted to only your course. If we do this, we could keep it quite or announce it in the forums so that others can ask I assume Freeman if they can access the problems.
The second way you can do yourself (after we tell you how or, harder, you read the documentation and/or play around). You upload the problems to your templates directory and access them directly from there. This is actually not very convenient since the library browser is coded so that it does not look in subdirectories of the templates directory (we should definitely change this so that it goes through sundirectories but does not follow links --- the reason it is set up this way is so it does not go through the whole NPL) which means you have to find the exact path to a problem (using the file manager) and then enter that somewhere. Very very inconvenient but doable.
So please contact Freeman and see what they are comfortable with (if anything) and let us know maybe by email instead of through the forum if they want to keep things private.
Arnie
Hi everyone,
I now know the following about the 2e of Rogawski and WeBWork Problems
(1) Freeman (the book publisher) does have problems coded up. You can get access to them by contacting your representative at Freeman. You just need to ask. They are asking that they not be public, but are being very generous and reasonably flexible and supportive of those who have adopted the book.
(2) If you are using the national MAA server for your courses (as I am), then you do not need to get the actual problems from Freeman, but just need an e-mail of permission from them to use the problems. Then send that permission message to Rajiv Sood <rsood@maa.org> and he will give you access to the problems. (you will get an additional button in your Library Browser).
(3) If you are NOT using the MAA server (e.g. you have a local server), then have Freeman send you the problems (they did this for me) and then you can place the Rogawski problem collection inside your copy of the NPL and thus have all the standard search options the NPL provides. In addition you can set up a button which gives you direct access to the collection --- this is how they set it up for those of us using the National Server.
If you have questions, I might be able to answer them as well as possibly others involved in setting this up.
- Amelia
I now know the following about the 2e of Rogawski and WeBWork Problems
(1) Freeman (the book publisher) does have problems coded up. You can get access to them by contacting your representative at Freeman. You just need to ask. They are asking that they not be public, but are being very generous and reasonably flexible and supportive of those who have adopted the book.
(2) If you are using the national MAA server for your courses (as I am), then you do not need to get the actual problems from Freeman, but just need an e-mail of permission from them to use the problems. Then send that permission message to Rajiv Sood <rsood@maa.org> and he will give you access to the problems. (you will get an additional button in your Library Browser).
(3) If you are NOT using the MAA server (e.g. you have a local server), then have Freeman send you the problems (they did this for me) and then you can place the Rogawski problem collection inside your copy of the NPL and thus have all the standard search options the NPL provides. In addition you can set up a button which gives you direct access to the collection --- this is how they set it up for those of us using the National Server.
If you have questions, I might be able to answer them as well as possibly others involved in setting this up.
- Amelia
Hi All,
Please see my news announcement
W.H. Freeman has contributed new problems to the NPL for Rogawski Calculus
If you have any questions about this please let me know here.
Thanks,
Jason
Please see my news announcement
W.H. Freeman has contributed new problems to the NPL for Rogawski Calculus
If you have any questions about this please let me know here.
Thanks,
Jason
Hi Jason,
Nice set of problems, but why is does the first line in every problem need to announce the textbook, the textbook chapter, and the problem number in the textbook, to the student? This is information that is normally only visible to the instructor. This makes the problems less useful.
Lars.
Hi Lars,
I hadn't noticed that, but you're right that would be disconcerting to students, and really that information is only relevant to instructors. My first thought is that we should probably fix this, and that a good compromise would be to put the information in a COMMENT(""). Any thoughts/comments/alternatives?
Jason
I hadn't noticed that, but you're right that would be disconcerting to students, and really that information is only relevant to instructors. My first thought is that we should probably fix this, and that a good compromise would be to put the information in a COMMENT(""). Any thoughts/comments/alternatives?
Jason
Hi Jason,
Putting the information in a comment sounds like a great improvement to me.
...And if you are going to make changes to the problems, it might also be a good
idea at the same time to shorten the path of the problems a bit so one can read
it when browsing the sets listing and the problems in the NPL Directory from the
Library browser. (Check this by clicking the NPL Directory drop-down menu and
note how long it has become horizontally.) Here is an example of a path of one of
the Rogawski problems:
Library/WHFreeman/Rogawski_Calculus_Early_Transcendentals_Second_Edition/11_Parametric_Equations_Polar_Coordinates_and_Conic_Sections/11.4_Area_and_Arc_Length_in_Polar_Coordinates/11.4.3.pg
The long path messes up the library browser and forces a lot of annoying
horizontal scrolling.
Lars.
Hi,
Since these problems are basically copies of textbook problems, I think people using the Rogawski text may want the problem identified. I certainly would not edit the problems without consulting Freeman.
One option would be to code this so that the problem identification information is only displayed if an instructor decides to display it for his or her course. This is easy, see e.g. http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/TextbookSpecificMessages
Arnie
Hi Everyone,
A perhaps better option may be to make a new NPL library containing the Rogawski problems, but with the first line of every problem removed.
Lars.
The textbook references in the Rogawski problems are all generated by a couple of functions in freemanMacros.pl. Rather than have two copies of the library, one can control these messages by editing the macro file.
I simply replaced the text in the macro file to be printed with an empty string (I will provide instructions on how to use this at the end of the message). A more elegant solution would be to add some logic to the macros file that checks whether the text should be displayed (i.e. have some setting that the professor can choose whether everyone or just professors see this information, possibly using the Textbook Specific Messages functionality).
In any case, here is my solution:
I have attached a copy of freemanMacros.pl with the changes made to suppress the messages. You need only put it in the right place to have the messages disappear:
For a single course:
Upload the file to the macros directory in your course.
For your entire server:
Replace the freemanMacros.pl file in the macros subdirectory of the National Problem Library directory. (Warning: if you later update this directory via svn, it may overwrite these changes).
Danny
Perhaps this information is here, but I did not see it: What is the total number of WeBWorK problems that have been created for Rogawski's Calculus (Early Transcendentals) 2nd. ed? Of this total, what fraction are available in the NPL?
Hi Louis,
I counted (find WHFreeman/. -type f | egrep '\.pg$' | wc -l) 853 pg files in NPL/WHFreeman, and 2009 pg files in their complete collection. So, I think the answer is "about 2000" and "about 42%".
BTW, if you find any bugs in those problems, please report them on bugzilla.
Thanks,
Jason
I counted (find WHFreeman/. -type f | egrep '\.pg$' | wc -l) 853 pg files in NPL/WHFreeman, and 2009 pg files in their complete collection. So, I think the answer is "about 2000" and "about 42%".
BTW, if you find any bugs in those problems, please report them on bugzilla.
Thanks,
Jason