Notes on managing WebWorK after the course has started

  1. Adding students to the course
    There are two steps to adding new students to a course once it has started: adding the students to the database, and building the problem sets.

    To add students to the database, go the the Professor's page, scroll down to topic 7, and click Enter Add Student(s) Page. Enter information in the table for the students you want to add. Select "none" in the list of sets, then click Add Students. If you select any sets in the list, the open, due, and answer dates will be the same for all sets, and you'll have to fix them for each student. So don't select any sets.

    Next, return to the Professor's page, scroll to topic 4, and click Enter Build Problem Set Page. In the first section, Build Problem Sets for [coursename], select the problem sets you want the new students to see in their list when they log on to WebWorK. If you want a verbose listing of actions taken, click the second or third radio button. Click Build Problem Set(s).

  2. Changing passwords
    To reset a password for a student, you need to run a command line script. Set your path to the webwork_1.5/system/scripts/ directory, and run the command
    newpassword.pl coursename userlogin secretword
    where secretword is the new password for the student with login name userlogin.

  3. Modifying open, due, answer dates
    To change dates for all students, choose topic 11 from the Professor's page, Examine or modify data for all students. Enter the new dates, click the Read/Write radio button, and click Save Above Changes. This changes the due dates in the database, but leaves the set definition files unchanged. If you later add students to the class and build problem sets for them, their dates will correspond to those in the set definition file, not to the changed dates in the database. So be careful.

    To change dates for individual students, such as those added after the course begins, choose topic 9 from the Professor's page and make the changes.

  4. Helping students with wrong answers
    Since each student is likely to have a different problem set, you may need to see the exact problem the student is working on. Scroll to part 9 of the Professor's page, select the student and problem set, and click the Examine or change individual problem set for: button. From this page you can change the open, due, and answer dates for the student without changing them for the rest of the class, and you can view the version of a problem the students sees. You can also view or download a hard copy of the student's problem set, including the answers if you wish.

    Many frustrations on the part of students who believe they have the correct answer when WebWorK is grading it wrong may be due to errors in syntax, insufficient use of parentheses, or other instances when an expression is interpreted by WebWorK differently from the way it was meant by the student. Students should be encouraged to study the rules at How to Enter Answers and to use the Preview Answers button before submitting their answers.

  5. Dropping students from the course
    Go to topic 8 on the Professor's page, Edit classlist database. Leave the database unlocked. Go to 2, Edit the classlist database, choose the student you wish to drop, and click Select student. Select the Read/Write Mode radio button. In the Enrollment Status box, enter DROP, D, or WITHDRAW. Anything else, including C or a blank field, indicates a student is active.

    When a student who is dropped from the course tries to log in, he receives a Login invalid message. However, if he is logged on at the time he is dropped, he can continue to work problems and have his answers recorded. The problems themselves will display compiler warnings (pink screens).

  6. Sending email to the class
    To send email to some or all students in the class, go to the send email page from the Professor's page. The screen comes up with the default message, which is blank unless you have saved a message as the default message. The recommended steps to send a message is:

    Open a saved message from the drop down box, if desired.
    If you want to use information from a saved file, select that file from the list. This is useful when you want to email students their scores.
    Edit the saved message, or compose a new message. You may create fields in the body of the message to be filled in for each recipient; the list of field is given in the Message drop down list.

    For example, the body of the message might consist of the following:

    Hello $FN $LN. Here is some information about you:

    Your name is $FN $LN.
    Your section is $SECTION.
    Your status is $STATUS.
    Your login is $LOGIN.
    Your student identification number is $SID, which is also your initial password.
    Your current email address in the database, to which the message is sent, is $EMAIL.

    A recipient of the email would receive something like this:
    Hello George W. Bushg. Here is some information about you:

    Your name is George W. Bush.
    Your section is Diesel.
    Your status is C.
    Your login is Bush.
    Your student identification number is 12345X, which is also your initial password.
    Your current email address in the database, to which the message is sent, is susan.j.diesel@dartmouth.edu.
    Next, fill in your name, the reply-to email address, and subject.
    If you want to save this email to use again, scroll to the bottom, enter a new name of the form [newname].msg in the box, and click Save as.
    Finally, select the recipients of the email. The default selection is to send to all current students in the class, those with status anything other than D, DROP, or WITHDRAW. You may also choose specific students from the list. The list includes all logins in the database, with any status, including instructors and practice users. Do not select a classlist (the third option). The classlists available are likely to be obsolete if you or students have made any changes since the initial upload.

    If you are sending to a subset of the class, often to a section, you may reorder the list to sort by section. The section or recitation name shows only when the list is ordered accordingly.

    The reason for recommending this order is that the recipient list is not saved with a saved message, while the other fields are. So, if you select recipients, then scroll down to open a saved message, the recipients revert to the default, all current students.


    This page is from Dartmouth WeBWorK