Overview

We will provide the answers to odd-numbered questions as a part of the textbook, as most physics textbooks do. The answers (both concise answers and fully worked-out solutions) to all problems will be available to instructors.

Kinetic Books will also offer a "check whether the answers are right or wrong" service. We call this service Online Homework. About 90% of the thousands of homework problems in the physics textbook will be machine-gradable because their answers are either quantitative, multiple choice, true/false or similarly restricted in scope.

Checking virtual labs is a different challenge than grading the answers to textbook homework problems. Click here for more information on the nature of responses to lab questions and how they are graded.

Types of questions and how they are graded

Answers the student submits will be transmitted to a server where they will be automatically graded, whenever possible. Whether a question can be graded depends on its type, as described below.

Quantitative questions. The majority of questions require quantitative answers. The student types in her response, and the server evaluates whether it is correct or not.

"Vary the parameter" questions prevent easy copying of answers. Some of the questions in the textbook are "vary the parameter" questions, where the computer automatically varies the data given in a problem so that the students cannot simply copy answers. The server grades these problems as well.

Conceptual questions. Some conceptual questions can be reasonably answered with a multiple-choice or yes/no response. This type of response can be automatically graded. Not all conceptual questions (for instance, “How would you…?”) lend themselves to this approach. The free-form text that students write to support a response to a conceptual question will be transmitted to you for assessment.

Algebraic responses. Some questions ask for a response that is algebraic or stated as a formula. In many of those cases, we offer students a multiple-choice response, and in others we also ask them to evaluate a derived expression at a particular time, location and so on, to generate a quantitative answer that can be automatically checked.

Diagrams and extremely complex formulas. There are three types of questions for which students cannot input answers at all, using the computer. These answers still require pencil and paper or the equivalent. For each of the three types we do supply to instructors the answers or, where appropriate, worked-out solutions.

In the first type, the answer is a graph or other drawing, for which there is at present no accessible standardized way to transmit data.

The second type of question, which occurs perhaps once or twice per chapter, asks students to state an algebraic expression that is particularly complex. Making these answers multiple-choice may harm the integrity of these questions, since seeing the answer might give it away. If there were a standardized way to enter integral symbols, square root signs, complex fractions and so forth, this would not be a problem, but there is nothing close at this point in time.

The third type of question that is not machine-gradable is one that asks the student to derive a stated formula.

What instructors have to do

To set up the grading process, instructors will need to go to our server to establish a secure identity, "create" their class and provide a list of students in the class. They can later log on to the server to retrieve results.

What students do

Students log on to the server to confirm their identity and create a password in order to be able to upload their answers. They do not need to be online to answer the questions, but they do need to be online to upload their responses. If they are the ones paying for the grading service, they must pay for it.

What the server provides

The server will grade the students' work. Reports will be available to instructors showing the percentage of problems a student answered correctly as well as results on each question. In addition, the instructor will be able to create reports that summarize the right/wrong percentages for each question and how the class performed as a whole with the questions they answered. These reports will be in a format that is conveniently transferable to spreadsheets or other programs.

How is payment made for service?

We are currently only taking purchase orders for this service. In the near future, we are planning to take orders over the Web on a secure page using a credit card number. We are also evaluating other services like PayPal, pay by check over the Web, and so forth.

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