I am a high school physics teacher and am setting up a WW server for my district. I have little to no experience with Apache mysql or perl scripting language because I feel strongly about its potential. The live DVD has simplified the process and I appreciate it. I understand why the National Problem Library is primarily populated by upper level content but I would like to increase the amount of content that is high school appropriate so I want to make available some of the "legacy" problem libraries. I have successfully downloaded them onto the server but am not alltogether sure about how to make that content available to teachers.
I have tried ot follow the instruction for installing the CAPA Physics problem library but find the description of how to edit the Global Configuration file (global.conf) inadequate.
My question is how do I make these file based problem libraries available for teachers to draw from when building assignment sets?
I think the information you need can be found
here:
http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Installation_Manual_for_2.4_on_Ubuntu_9.04#Set_up_the_Rochester_and_Union_Libraries
here:
http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Installation_Manual_for_2.4_on_Ubuntu_9.04#Set_up_the_Rochester_and_Union_Libraries
Hi,
The above contains explicit instructions on setting up regular libraries. Unfortunately the CAPA library requires some additional steps which I don't know off the top of my head. I'll try to figure these out and write them down here if not in the general install directions. But it may be a little while before I get to it.
Arnie
The above contains explicit instructions on setting up regular libraries. Unfortunately the CAPA library requires some additional steps which I don't know off the top of my head. I'll try to figure these out and write them down here if not in the general install directions. But it may be a little while before I get to it.
Arnie
My employeer (a math textbooks company, specializing in material for high school and community colleges) has had me working for a while on a rethink of webwork[1], focusing more on those particular educational levels, and sacrificing the power needed for high-level collegiate mathematics to simplify the user interface for students and teachers, and make the whole system easier to administrate for part-time self-taught sysadmins.
It's still got a ways to go before being suitable for production use, but if it sounds intriguing to you, I'd appreciate hearing a bit more about your specific situation. You can send me emails at james@xyztextbooks.com.
Anyways, I don't want to discourage anyone away from using webwork (it's a great system), so I hope we can be of use with your current problems. I just couldn't resist the chance to plug. ;)
[1]: http://xyztextbooks.github.com/fourU/
I am certainly open to working with a more user friendly interface. I am not displeased with the teacher or student interface but the system administration has been a challenge.
What I would like to see, as a teacher, is a user friendly graphical interface application that would simplify writing problems. I haven't actually written any problems but it appears challenging and technical.
What I would like to see, as a teacher, is a user friendly graphical interface application that would simplify writing problems. I haven't actually written any problems but it appears challenging and technical.
You might be interested in an experiment that I worked on for a while (and still want to work more on) called PGML (the PG Markup Language). You can test it out at
http://hosted2.webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/cervone_course/PGML?login_practice_user=true
THis is not a user interface to authoring, but rather a new language for describing a problem. (Actually it just sits on top of the current PG, and would be available within a BEGIN_PGML/END_PGML block, much like the BEGIN_TEXT/END_TEXT block).
The idea was to try to remove most of the programming and give a more natural way of laying out a problem. The layout is based on Markdown (one of the Wiki formatting languages), plus some extensions for WeBWorK things like answer blanks and so on. The answers are more intimately tied to the blanks in PGML. See the examples in the first problem at the link above.
Anyway, it is not exactly what you are asking for, but is moving toward a simpler authoring method.
Davide
http://hosted2.webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/cervone_course/PGML?login_practice_user=true
THis is not a user interface to authoring, but rather a new language for describing a problem. (Actually it just sits on top of the current PG, and would be available within a BEGIN_PGML/END_PGML block, much like the BEGIN_TEXT/END_TEXT block).
The idea was to try to remove most of the programming and give a more natural way of laying out a problem. The layout is based on Markdown (one of the Wiki formatting languages), plus some extensions for WeBWorK things like answer blanks and so on. The answers are more intimately tied to the blanks in PGML. See the examples in the first problem at the link above.
Anyway, it is not exactly what you are asking for, but is moving toward a simpler authoring method.
Davide
I realize this reply has a massive 9 year delay but I wanted to let you know how useful the PGML site you linked has been to me recently. I have been able to find syntax errors very quickly in my problems using the PGML tester thing. I also appreciate how simple PGML is to use.
Thank You
Hi,
You can now find explicit instructions for this at
http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Installation_Manual_for_2.4_on_Ubuntu_9.04#Install_and_Set_Up_the_CAPA_Library
Arnie
You can now find explicit instructions for this at
http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Installation_Manual_for_2.4_on_Ubuntu_9.04#Install_and_Set_Up_the_CAPA_Library
Arnie
Thank you for all the help.
I have a much better grasp of the system now as well.
I have a much better grasp of the system now as well.