Introduction to WeBWorK for
Students
I.
What
is WeBWorK?
WeBWorK is a system developed at the
University of Rochester that allows professors to put homework problems on the
web and allows students to submit their answers over the web. WeBWorK is currently
used in over 300 colleges, universities and high schools.
WeBWorK is a grader, not a tutor. It will
give you immediate feedback on your mastery of each topic. It may also give you
hints. Research has shown that the use of WeBWorK has
improved student success by an average of half a grade in College Algebra
courses at some universities. WeBWorK requires that you have access to the internet, nut
you are not required to have access while working out a homework set — only for
downloading the set and for submitting your answer
Students may try each homework
problem up to fifteen (15) times and, with each try, there is a message telling
you whether the answer is correct or not. There is no penalty for submitting
several incorrect answers to a problem before submitting the correct answer.
This allows you to find your own errors and to understand the topic of the
question better. The WeBWorK homework sets are
individualized so that each student has a different version of each problem.
II.
How
to use WeBWorK to do your homework
1.
Find
a computer with access to Firefox, Chrome, Internet
Explorer, Safari or another browser. It can be either your own or one in any of
the university computer labs.
2.
Open
the browser and go to the main WeBWorK homepage. The
address is: https://courses.webwork.maa.org/webwork2/uky-ma113
3.
To
log in, fill in your username (this is the same as your LinkBlue
username for e-mail) and your password (this is initially the same as your
username), and click on the Continue button: 
.
4.
You
should now be looking at a page headed by the course title and term that lists
the homework sets that are available for you to work on. The first thing you should do is to change
your password. Click on Password/Email
in the Main Menu.
5.
You
will be presented with the following window in which you should change your
password from the initial login password to something of your own making. Additionally, if you do not wish to receive
all email through WeBWorK through your UK email
account, you can enter a new email account in the Change Email Address. WARNING:
All email will go to that email account.
It must be and account that you access on a daily basis. Most communication about this course will be
through email. We suggest that you use
your UK email account as all official UK announcements will be sent thereto.
When you are done with your changes,
click on Change User Options.
6.
Click
on Homework Sets in the Main Menu and you will be presented with a list of
Homework Sets.
In the Status column, each set is
marked as open, closed, or not yet open. If the set is open, that means that
when you solve a problem, it will be counted towards your grade. If the set is
closed, you can still solve problems and get your answers checked, but your
results will not be recorded.
After the indication of whether the
set is open or closed, there is additional information about the due date (if
the set is open), or whether the answers are available (if the set is closed).
When the answers are available, you have the option of looking at correct
answers when viewing a problem.
7.
After
you have clicked on a homework set, you will see a page with a list of the
problems in the set you chose. To view and/or answer a problem, click on that
problem in the 'Problem Number' list.
8.
First
generate a hardcopy of your homework set. You can do so as follows:
Click
on Homework Sets in the Main Menu.
To print out a particular set, click in the box next to that set in the Name
column, and then click Download Hardcopy for Selected Sets. You will be taken
to the Hardcopy Generator page. Check that the
desired set is highlighted, and then click the Generate Hardcopy button at the
bottom of the page. Wait for the server to generate the page, and then save it
to your computer and print a copy. We, the instructors, cannot emphasize enough that you should
always first download a hard copy of your Homework set and work it out by hand
away from the computer, or at least think carefully about each of the problems
on it. Working out a homework set in from your computer without previous
preparation leads to guessing answers and that is not very efficient or
effective.
9.
Once
you have finished working out the problems in your homework set, you can input
your answers. Click on the name of the
set (it is a hyper link) and you will see a page listing the problems in the set
(middle columns) and other information, including due date and whatever the
instructor wants to communicate to you (right column).
10.
Once
you click on a problem, you will see the text of the problem with boxes for
your answers. After working out the problem on paper, enter your answers in the
boxes and click on the Submit Answers button. You will want to save the paper
on which you work out the problems, because this is part of what you will need
to study for quizzes and exams.
When you submit an answer, you will be
told immediately whether or not your answer is correct. If your answer is not
correct, you may try again. After you have attempted a problem, you can use the
buttons at the top of the page to go to the next problem or the previous
problem, or to see the list of problems again. If you are working on a homework
set that is already closed, you will have the option to see the correct answer.
To see the correct answer, just check the box Show correct answers and click on
the Check Answers button (you do not have to enter an answer to see the correct
answer).
If your answer is marked incorrect by
the computer and you are not sure what it has read is what you have entered,
check the Answer Preview column that appears at the top of the page once you
have submitted an answer. The computer shows you how it is interpreting your
answer.
If you want to check the status of
your problems (e.g. to double check
that your answers have been recorded), use the Prob. List button at the top of
the problem page to see the problem list page. The problem list page shows how
much credit you have for each problem that you have attempted.
When you finished working, log out by
clicking on Log Out at the top right corner of the page or towards the top of
the left panel. All of your answers to date will be saved. You do not have to finish a homework set all
in one sitting.
11.
There
are three links at the left of the page in the Main Menu that are available to
you at all times during a WeBWorK session.
§ Homework sets takes you to the list
of available sets (the page you saw immediately after you logged in).
§ Password/Email takes you to the page
where you can reset your password and the email address used by WeBWorK to contact you.
§ Grades takes you to a summary of your grades for WeBWorK assignments.
§ Also available to you at all times is
an Email instructor button, at the bottom of every WeBWorK
page.
III.
Important facts to know
- What do you do if you
have problems with WeBWorK?
o If you have a problem logging in,
contact your instructor.
o If you have a problem printing out a
set, ask a consultant at one of the computer labs. If you don’t get sufficient
help, contact your instructor.
o If you have questions on specific
homework problems or if you have comments about WeBWorK that you think can
help us make WeBWorK
better, click on the 'Email instructor' button on any of the pages of WeBWorK.
- If you are logged on to WeBWorK
for longer that 30
minutes without any activity, you may be asked to log in again. This is a
security measure. You can resume your work after you are logged back in.
All your results from the last log in will be saved.