** Using WeBWorK **

You can tell what version you are running by looking at the "WeBWorK Logo" at the top of (e.g.) the login page. The version number appears on the right side. If there is no version number, you are running a very old version.

Version 1.5 of WeBWorK contains many enhancements. Most noticeable to Professors is that most course administration tasks can now be performed over the web. For example new students can be added to a course with a single operation (the initialPasswords.pl script has disappeared). WeBWorK also now supports recitations in addition to sections. The WeBWorK documentation is no longer distributed with the WeBWorK system. Go to http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/ for information. When connecting to documentation from within a WeBWorK course (by clicking on the small square WeBWorK logo in the upper left corner), users will be automatically connected to http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/docs/docs which is the main documentation root. The best guide to many of the new features is http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/docs/docs/courseadmin/usingwebwork.html It would be a very good idea to look at it.

Courses running under WeBWorK 1.4 will have to be updated before they will run under WeBWorK 1.5. The reason is that in 1.5 the classlist has essentially been replaced by a database. Upgrading is very easy --- see readme.upgrade (Also see More Details On Upgrading below).

This version of WeBWorK ships with about 1300 problems, up from 800 in version 1.4. These cover precalculus through vector calculus. Problems for Differential Equations and 8th grade mathematics are being written. Also several groups around the country are actively writing WeBWorK problems. We hope to set up a system for sharing WeBWorK problems soon. The demoCourse contains the 1300 problems. Two of these (setLimitsRates2Limits/ns2_2_5.pg and ns2_2_6.pg) have bugs. The 1300 problems are also in templates_1.5_22-August-00.tar.gz and here these two problems are bug free. (Of course we are distributing the two buggy problems so that you can see what WebWorK error messages look like.) We make no promises that the other 1298 problems are bug free but most have been used by students. The major exception to this are the new vector calculus problems.

If you are interested in using WeBWorK, but are not ready to install it at your institution, we can host small (say under 100 student) WeBWorK courses at Rochester. This will give people the opportunity to use WeBWorK without the necessity of installing WeBWorK. If you are interested in this, please contact Mike Gage (gage@math.rochester.edu) or Arnie Pizer ( apizer@math.rochester.edu).

We are just beginning to setup a dynamic site for WeBWorK news, discussions, faq, documentation, etc. For example we want to put up lists of who is actually using WeBWorK, in what courses, with how many students, and on what hardware. If you would like to provide us with this information, we would be grateful. The new dynamic site is:

http://webhost.math.rochester.edu/webworkdocs/ or you can click on the Discussion Group link on the left margin of http://webwork.math.rochester.edu To make a comment about specific page choose the "<|post comments|>" link at the bottom of each page.

To post to the discussion group for the first time, choose "join now", on the left margin of http://webhost.math.rochester.edu/webworkdocs/, and fill in the information asked for. A cookie will be placed on your machine which will allow you to post additional comments without logging in again.

We would like to encourage WeBWorK users to post to the discussion group so that we can all help each other in answering questions and providing tips on effective ways to use WeBWorK in classes. Bug reports are welcome and we will fix them and post the fixes to the discussion group as fast as we can. The search item can help you find out if a problem has already been discussed, together with its solution.

Every so often we will update the static documentation at http://webwork.math.rochester.edu/docs from the dynamic site.