WeBWorK Advice and Basic Information

• If you have problems with WeBWorK, contact me through Piazza, email, phone or in person right away.
• Download and print the generated PDF hardcopies of the problem sets. This allows you to leave the computer, do the problems on paper as you would with regular homework and then return to the computer to submit your answers. NOTE: many of the images will not print big enough on the PDF copy so for those problems, you will have to be near a computer to see the larger versions of the images.
• Keep your work in a notebook or some other organized way as if you were turning it in. Thus when you have difficulties with a problem, you can ask about it in class or office hours and you can see your work. Too many times I've had students stop by my office saying they can't do problem #x and have no work for us to look at to see what the issue is. Or they can't find their work in their notebook, and time is wasted paging through their papers/notebook trying to find the problem.
• Read and do the Intro problem set. This not only explains the system but also teaches you how to type your answers.
• Don't guess; it's neither efficient nor effective. Problems have a limited number of attempts to reduce guessing and get you to ask for help. You'll also need to understand the concepts behind these problems for exams and subsequent material.
• Give exact values or 4 or 5 significant digits for (floating point) numerical answers. For most problems when entering numerical answers, you can if you wish enter elementary expressions such as 2^3 instead of 8, sin(3pi/2) instead of -1, e^(ln(2)) instead of 2, (2+tan(3))*(4-sin(5))^6-7/8 instead of 27620.3413, etc. It is usually easier to use exact values unless directed otherwise, like sqrt(2) instead of a decimal approximation. Many students have gotten frustrated when their answer was marked incorrect because of they didn't type in enough decimal places. Here's the list of the functions which WeBWorK understands. Usually the syntax you may know from using graphing calculators will work in WeBWorK.
• If I go through a problem in class because of a question, don't just go through and try and change the numbers in my work to match yours. That is not the point. You need to be able to do and understand the problem, no matter what numbers you've been given so do the problem step by step for your own problem.
• Use Preview Answers. Students have come to me frustrated because WeBWorK keeps saying the answer is wrong and they can't find the mistake. Many times, when we use the Preview Answers, we see that while their work is correct, they typed in the answer wrong - parens in the wrong place, or what should be in the numerator is in the denominator of the fraction, etc.
• Keep track of the time and date due! Too many students have lost points because the didn't do this. On the bottom-left corner of the page (you may have to scroll to see it) is the date/time of the WeBWorK system. If you are entering answers close to the due date and time, pay attention to this and MAKE SURE YOU SUBMIT YOUR ANSWERS.
• Form a study group. Learning math is best as a social activity. Working together on homework is allowed, as long as everyone contributes. I've also found that the best way to learn material is to try and explain it to someone else (SHAMELESS PLUG: become a tutor!). And hopefully that someone else can then explain another problem to you.

Some other information:

• Your login name and password is the same as your Loyola user ID and password.
• DATES: There are two important dates, the Reduced Scoring Date and the Due Date. The Reduced Scoring Date should really be thought of as the due date. After that, you can get up to 50% on any problem you complete correctly until the official Due Date. Think of the Reduced Scoring Period (the period between the Reduced Scoring Date and the Due Date as a "last chance" period for partial credit.
• SUBMITTING: Hitting the submit button for each problem is how the scores are stored; there is no global "now submit this assignment" process you need to do.
• ATTEMPTS: Most homework problems have a maximum of 10 attempts, others (such as matching or multiple choice) will have fewer. ASK FOR HELP IF YOU'VE TRIED FOUR TIMES. After five attempts, many problems will re-randomize the problem.
• I also designate textbook problems on the class homework website are for further practice or to review in the future. I will never collect these problems.
• If you are logged on to WeBWorK for longer than a certain amount of minutes (10? 30?) without any activity, you will be asked to log in again. This is a security measure. You can resume your work after you logged back in. All your submitted results from the last log in will be saved.