WeBWorK Problems

Updating CAPA

Updating CAPA

by Boyd Duffee -
Number of replies: 4

I'm looking to increase the number of physics problems available in the OPL.

Now that the CAPA libraries are over a quarter century old, are there any barriers to updating, tagging and submitting them to the OPL, other than finding a gullible fool to do the work?  They are licensed as No unauthorised Commercial Use which is standard for the OPL.  Are there questions of pedagogy?  Is it worth doing the work?

This would be an opportunity to get them to use MathObject and NumberWithUnits, clean up any display issues, turn eps files into png and remove superfluous code left over from the original machine translation.

Is there anyone with responsibility for maintaining CAPA or were they just dumped in OPL's Contrib directory so that they didn't get lost.  If someone were to start updating them, would it be better in the existing CAPA area or starting in a new area?

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In reply to Boyd Duffee

Re: Updating CAPA

by Sean Fitzpatrick -

This doesn't answer your question about dealing with CAPA, but just to note: I'm aware of two Physics departments in Canada (Brock University and University of Lethbridge) that have written their own question banks.

Maybe Brock has contributed theirs. I know U of L hasn't. So if the goal is more physics problems, that's one place to start.

In reply to Sean Fitzpatrick

Re: Updating CAPA

by Boyd Duffee -

Brock has 4 textbooks in the Contrib directory, but they haven't progressed them to the main collection.  A point I was hoping to raise with them.  I'll put Lethbridge on my list of people to talk to.

Vanier College in Montreal was interested in the OpenStax textbook problems.  Brock has made 4 chapters of Volume III available and I'd like to know if anyone is interested in continuing.

All of these efforts have people still around who could be persuaded to make that one last step to get their problems into the OPL where everyone can find them easily.  I, too, have problems twidling their thumbs in Pending that I need to address.  I asked about CAPA because it seems unloved. :-(

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In reply to Boyd Duffee

Re: Updating CAPA

by Alex Jordan -

It is up to the OPL curating team to process Brock's files through the Contrib folder, and I think a stumbling block is that the OPL tagging system may not have appropriate tags for physics problems. And also the curators are not adequately funded (or not funded at all?)

You could set up access to the Contrib folder and just use the problems there, untagged, but sorted by their subfolders. This section has the details of you may do that: https://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Open_Problem_Library#Browsing_the_OPL


In reply to Alex Jordan

Re: Updating CAPA

by Todd Ruskell -

What is involved with expanding the OPL tagging system?  Colorado School of Mines is looking at creating a significant number of calculus-based intro physics problems, and it seems it would make sense to "properly" tag those problems from the get-go.  

Helping create physics-related tags sounds like something I might be able to help with.