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Thomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1

Thomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 4
activeTopicCopying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1 topic started 1/4/2007; 3:35:42 PM
last post 1/10/2007; 12:18:03 PM
userThomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1  blueArrow
1/4/2007; 3:35:42 PM (reads: 33, responses: 1)
For instructors teaching the same course as last semester, I want to create a new course (Course B) and then copy all the problem sets from Course A from the previous semester. If I choose "Copy Templates From Course A" on the Course Administration Page, I end up with a course that has all the initial problem sets from Course A from the beginning of the semester. Is there an easy way to end up with the problem sets from the end of the semester?

The only way I know how to do this is to "Export templates" using the "Homework Set Editor" for Course A and then create Course B using the Course Administration page. It's straightforward, but as I need to do this about 20 times, I'm wondering if this step can be eliminated.

Also, in a similar vein. When one creates a course, is it possible to have the templates automatically imported into the course (thus saving another step?).

Thanks, Tom

ps. We are running Webwork 2.1

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userMichael Gage - Re: Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1  blueArrow
1/10/2007; 12:18:03 PM (reads: 3, responses: 0)
We don't currently have this automated. The current method (export set definition files, create new course with old course as a model ) is a bit clumsy, but it's easy to remember for a faculty member just duplicating one course.

Since WeBWorK is scriptable I think the best solution to your problem would be to create a script in webwork2/bin which you can call from the command line and would perform this action on a list of courses. A systems administrator could then run this script and set up courses for the next semester. I'll add it to the features wish list.

-- Mike

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In reply to Arnold Pizer

Re: Thomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1

by Deleted user -
Hi Tom,

Our solution to this problem is to have everyone re-use the old courses.
They backup their scores etc, then delete the old students and change due dates etc before I upload the new student rosters. This way the instructors kind of take care of their own setup, and it saves disk space.
I'm sure there are probably reasons this is not a wise thing to do, but so far it is working ok. Would be interested to hear if people think it is a bad idea.
Certainly the log files get a bit unwieldy.

Speaking of exporting though, I am having some trouble with the file names but I'll post it in a new forum.

Andy
In reply to Deleted user

Re: Thomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1

by Thomas Hagedorn -
Hi Andy,

Yes, that's a pretty good solution. We used to do something similar when we first used Webwork, but when we changing from Webwork 1 to Webwork 2, we got into the habit of creating courses from scratch. It's certainly easier than what we've been doing recently.

-Tom
In reply to Deleted user

Re: Thomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1

by Andrew Knightly -
I think I may have run into a problem by reusing the old courses.
In several courses, we deleted the old students, added new students and recycled the old problem sets from the previous semester.
When I try to view statistics for the recycled problem sets, I'm getting the error:

Illegal division by zero at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/ContentGenerator/Instructor/Stats.pm line 438.

(And no stats are given). This only seems to happen in the recycled courses, so I suspect something is going on there.
I think line 438 refers to the success indicator. Any idea what could be happening?
In reply to Andrew Knightly

Re: Thomas Hagedorn - Copying a Course -- Course Administration Page - Webwork 2.1

by Andrew Knightly -
Update, in case anyone cares:
I found a way around the above error- the cause is the students who are carried over from the previous course (in my case there were 3 such accounts: knightly, admin, global_user). You have to unassign all the hw from those users (preferably at the beginning of the semester) and then reassign them. If you do this, the error goes away.