[TOS] Introduction
me
aubreyja at gmail.com
Wed Dec 1 14:21:13 UTC 2010
Thanks Heidi,
And, yes! We would welcome student developers. We currently have a
CS student working on UI improvements in the instructor interface
using html5, and the project has had other very successful and fairly
long-term relationships with other students in the past. One issue is
that perl is not as popular as it used to be, but we have other
projects on the shelf (such as UI improvments, integration with
moodle, sakai, blackboard, and others) that could be worked on by
students with limited or no perl background to start. Also, our wiki,
moodle site, web-pages could use some nice and consistent themes, and
the css for webwork itself would use
some improvement....lot's of work to done!
Also, you and others may be interested in the work of Christelle
Scharff et. al. at Pace University in NY. She and her colleagues used
webwork directly as a way of teaching students to get involved in an
open source project, and her students have developed an extension for
webwork for use in programming courses under an NSF CCLI grant.
You can find her work at
http://csis.pace.edu/~scharff/webwork/webwork.html
Thanks,
Jason
On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 6:53 AM, Heidi Ellis <heidijcellis at gmail.com> wrote:
> Welcome Jason!
>
> WeBWorK is an interesting project. It appears that the site has some tasks that are appropriate for newbies to open source and there are good directions for developers on where to start. This could provide some interesting student projects!
>
> Heidi Ellis
>
> Heidi J. C. Ellis
> Chair and Associate Professor
> Department of Computer Science and Information Technology
> Western New England College
> 1215 Wilbraham Road
> Springfield, MA 01119-2684
> ellis at wnec.edu
> http://mars.wnec.edu/~hellis
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org [mailto:tos-bounces at teachingopensource.org] On Behalf Of me
> Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 10:35 PM
> To: tos at teachingopensource.org
> Subject: [TOS] Introduction
>
> Hi All,
>
> I've just joined the list and I'm writing to introduce myself. I'm a
> mathematician at the University of Missouri
> in Columbia, Missouri. I'm closely involved with the WeBWorK project
> (webwork.maa.org). WeBWorK is an
> open-source perl-based online homework system for math courses. It's
> widely used:
>
> http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/WeBWorK_Sites
>
> Compared to publisher based systems, WeBWorK is far more sophisticated
> in terms of the mathematics it can handle.
> But, the publisher systems tend to be shinier. :)
>
> WeBWorK began development iin 1995 by Profs. Arnold Pizer and Michael
> Gage at the University of Rochester
> Department of Mathematics. It is now supported by a team of developers
> from several institutions and is used for a
> variety of subjects. Also, the Mathematical Association of America,
> one of the two main professional societies for mathematicians,
> has recently 'adopted' webwork. They host courses for math courses
> around the country and provide us with server space for our
> svn repositories, forums, wiki, and mailing lists. WeBWorK is also
> supported by the NSF.
>
> We're very much trying to 'do' open-source right; we have a great
> community of math faculty from around the US and abroad who
> use webwork at their institutions, write documentation, contribute on
> the fourms, author webwork problems, and contribute to
> webwork development. But, we're pretty much all mathematicians by
> training (rather than developers, technical writers, community
> managers, etc.), and in spite of the longevity and success of WeBWorK
> so far, we could learn a lot from people involved with
> other open-source projects. So, I was very excited to come across the
> teachingopensource.org site, and I'm looking forward to learning
> from you all and contributing where I can.
>
> If you're interested to know what kind of development is going on, the
> following page on our wiki lists some ideas we put up for a Google SOC
> application for last summer (sadly, not funded).
>
> http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Google_summer_of_code_projects
>
> And, I invite you to take a look at webwork and let us know if you are
> interested in contributing. For development, knowledge of perl,
> javascript or html5/css3 would help, but like any other open-source
> project, there are a lot of ways to get involved.
>
> Also, to that end, we would be very much like to explore the
> possibility of participating in the POSSE program. We've communicated
> some with Mel about
> this, with the idea of perhaps running a POSSE program either
> alongside or in support of a workshop that we already have in the
> works.
> This past summer, a colleague and I submitted a proposal this summer
> to the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), to run a so-called
> PREP (Professional Enhancement Programs) workshop at the end of June
> 2011 intended to bring together professors from around the country
> interested in contributing to WeBWorK. Happily, that has been funded,
> and perhaps there is an opportunity for collaboration here.
>
> But, either way, I'm excited to be a part of this community, and,
> well, that's my introduction!
>
> Thanks,
> Jason
>
> --
> Jason Aubrey, PhD Office: 219 Math Sciences
> Department of Mathematics Office Phone: (573)882-4473
> University of Missouri - Columbia Voice Mail: (573) 416-0784
>
> Mailing Address:
> 202 Mathematical Sciences Department Fax: (573)882-1869
> University of Missouri Department Phone: (573) 882-6221
> Columbia, MO 65211 USA
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>
--
Jason Aubrey, PhD Office: 219 Math Sciences
Department of Mathematics Office Phone: (573)882-4473
University of Missouri - Columbia Voice Mail: (573) 416-0784
Mailing Address:
202 Mathematical Sciences Department Fax: (573)882-1869
University of Missouri Department Phone: (573) 882-6221
Columbia, MO 65211 USA
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