** Using WeBWorK **

Hello WeBWorK users,

We've just added two libraries totaling over 1400 problems to the OPL. Well, they aren't in the actual OPL yet because it will take some time for the OPL maintainers to review them. But they are available to you now as detailed below.

These problems deal with basic algebra and basic math, topics which are not part of university curricula. But they will be of interest to high school, community college, and remedial university instructors. The problems use randomization, have coded solutions, use Math Objects, and have had attention paid to web accessibility issues. Additionally we developed a few new PG techniques to handle issues at this level, such as polynomial factorization and required simplification of radical expressions. These problems surely still have a bug here and there with a bad random seed, but they have been vetted through about 50 different sections over the past year.

Eventually these problems will be in the OPL, but for now they are in
/opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library/Contrib/PCC. To access them on your server, you can:

cd /opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library
git pull origin master

and you will then have both of:
/opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library/Contrib/PCC/BasicAlgebra
/opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library/Contrib/PCC/BasicMath

The problems almost all use special macro files, which will have been pulled to
/opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library/OpenProblemLibrary/macros/PCC

but that file path needs to be added to the array reference in defaults.config, like so:

$pg{directories}{macrosPath} = [
".",
$courseDirs{macros},
$pg{directories}{macros},
...
"$courseDirs{templates}/Library/macros/UMass-Amherst",
"$courseDirs{templates}/Library/macros/PCC",
];

Now you need to add symlinks in the templates folder in your courses that link to the libraries. You can do this all at once with the following. If you know that you have permission to add symlinks in your courses, you can remove the sudos from this.

for each in /opt/webwork/courses/*/templates

do ( cd $each; sudo ln -s /opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library/Contrib/PCC/BasicAlgebra/ PCCBasicAlgebra; sudo ln -s /opt/webwork/libraries/webwork-open-problem-library/Contrib/PCC/BasicMath/ PCCBasicMath )

done

You could also just create symlinks in individual courses.

Once this is done, each course should have @PCCBasicAlgebra and @PCCBasicMath as symlinks in the templates folder. From the Library Browser, in Local Problems you will be able to find the problems. If you like you can go one step further, and make each of these two libraries a button in your Library Browsers. To do this, add lines to this hash in localOverrides.conf like this:

$courseFiles{problibs} = {
Library => "OPL Directory",
# rochesterLibrary => "Rochester",
...
# capaLibrary => "CAPA",
PCCBasicAlgebra => "PCC Basic Algebra",
PCCBasicMath => "PCC Basic Math",
};

This will make the problems "disappear" from your Local Problems button, but add a "PCC Basic Algebra" and "PCC Basic Math" button instead. At some point they will become part of the actual OPL, and these symlinks and separate library buttons will be unnecessary.

Please send any feedback about these problems to me (alex.jordan@pcc.edu). We'll correct any issues and maintain the problems on github, so a simple pull should give you updated versions.