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Mathematics and Physics

Computing

WeBWorK is an open-source homework learning tool used in STEM courses. If you are a student or instructor, WeBWorK is accessed only from within Canvas. For background information and institutional deployment, click WeBWorK.

If you are an instructor, the WeBWorK course setup instructions are below.

For a Canvas course to be able to use WW, there must be a corresponding WW course. Similarly, for a Canvas assignment (homework, quiz, test, etc) to be able to use WW, it must be linked to a WW assignment. The relation is many-to-one: Several Canvas assignments may link to the same WW assignment.

All text entered in Canvas below is case-sensitive.

It is best to start by setting up a pre-existing assignment, such as the orientation assignment. After this, you can create your own new assignment.

Setting Up an Existing WeBWorK Assignment

The existing WW assignment Orientation is designed to introduce students to WW. To link a Canvas assignment to Orientation, create a Canvas assignment, name it Orientation, and make the assignment worth 10 points. Then, for Submission Type, select External Tool, then click Find. Scroll down and select WeBWorK, then modify the URL to read

https://math.newhaven.edu/webwork2/admin_unh_template/Orientation

Click the box Load This Tool In A New Tab, then Save and Exit. This Canvas assignment is now linked to this WW assignment, as can be verified by becoming a "Test Student", then clicking on this Canvas assignment, then clicking Load Orientation in a new window. Go ahead, do a couple of problems in this assignment, and check that the Canvas grades of "Test Student" are updated.

Setting Up a New WeBWorK assignment

  1. The Canvas assignment just set up was linked to an assignment in the WW course admin_unh_template. Now we create an assignment in your WW course. The name of any WW course is login_dept_course, where login is the instructor's UNH login, and dept and course must be obtained from the Canvas dashboard. For example, if your Canvas course is DSCI-6001-02 and your UNH username login is ohijab, then your WW course is ohijab_dsci_6001 (lowercase).
  2. To create the WW assignment VectorsDotProduct in the WW course ohijab_dsci_6002, create a Canvas assignment named VectorsDotProduct, then repeat step 1 with the URL

    https://math.newhaven.edu/webwork2/ohijab_dsci_6002/VectorsDotProduct

    As a general rule, avoid spaces in HW assignment names. Click on the Canvas assignment just created, then click on Load VectorsDotProduct in a new window. A new web page will open. If this new page presents the warning Course " ohijab_dsci_6002" not found, then the WW course ohijab_dsci_6002 was not set up yet by the WW admin. In this case, email math_webwork@newhaven.edu requesting the creation of this WW course.

    If instead the new page presents the warning The selected problem set ( VectorsDotProduct) is not a valid set, then ohijab_dsci_6002 is set up but VectorsDotProduct is not. This is not a surprise, as we have linked the Canvas assignment to the not-yet-created WW assignment VectorsDotProduct.

    In this case, to create VectorsDotProduct, click on Library Browser at left, then enter VectorsDotProduct, then click on Create a New Set in This Course. The Logged in as at the upper right corner indicates you are auto-logged into the WW server as the WW course's instructor.

  3. To add problems to a WW assignment, on the Library Browser page, select it from the pull-down menu Select a Set from this Course, then select problems to add from the pull-down menus. The Library Browser page is full of options and deserves careful study. This completes the setup.

More details

  1. In a future WW release, WW courses and assignments will be auto-created, if necessary, upon carrying out step 3, and the above warnings will never appear.
  2. When a student clicks on a Canvas assignment for the first time, they are auto-logged into the WW course, they are auto-assigned all WW assignments in that course, and a new page opens displaying the requested WW assignment.
  3. If you create a WW assignment after students have logged into WW, i.e. after the start of the semester, be sure to assign this WW assignment to all users by going to Hmwk Sets Editor in WW.
  4. Each time a student (including Canvas's "Test Student") submits an answer, their WW assignment grade is updated and simultaneously sent back to the Canvas course gradebook, where the Canvas assignment is also updated. For instructors or TAs, grades are not saved nor sent back to Canvas.
  5. If, while working in WW, you or a student are timed out because of inactivity, then close the page, and reconnect to WW from within Canvas.
  6. Both the WW course name and the WW assignment name are alphanumeric and case-sensitive with no spaces (use underscores instead). Typing the URL directly [i.e. skipping Find in step 1] won't work, you must follow the details in step 1.
  7. To adjust the WW assignment dates, click on Hmwk Sets Editor. It's best to specify Canvas assignment dates and leave WW assignment dates wide open. Here also you can adjust total number of points for the WW assignment. It's simplest to let this equal the total number of points of the Canvas assignment.
  8. To see what a student sees, in Canvas, become a "Test Student" before clicking on a given assignment. Alternatively, when in WW, click on Classlist Editor, then click on any student's login. You will then act as that student, as indicated in the upper right corner Acting as.
  9. There are over 37,000 problems in the Library Browser page. For additional info and guidance, google, there are plenty of resources on the web: WW is used at over 1,300 universities worldwide.
  10. If you are teaching several sections of the same course, the separate Canvas sections point to the same WW course. WW course names do not contain section numbers. If you want to have different assignments for different sections, you can do so within the same WW course.
  11. If you want to link a Canvas assignment to a WW assignment from a previously taught course, but you forgot the WW assignments names in that course, repeat step 1 or step 3 using a URL with a blank or "empty" WW assignment name (by step 2, you can't forget your WW course name). When loading this Canvas assignment, you'll see all WW assignments in this WW course.
  12. As you saw in step 1, a Canvas assignment in one Canvas course may point to a WW assignment in any other WW course at UNH.
  13. In the case of a course taught by a single instructor, that instructor will be the only person with read-write access to the WW course. If your course section is part of a multi-section Canvas course taught by several instructors, the course coordinator may have already set up the WW course, so please check with them.
  14. Students can email the instructor from within WW. The email message the instructor receives will be from math_webwork@newhaven.edu.