Colloquium: Dr. Naresh Sen, UMBC
CANCELED
Location
Physics : 401
Date & Time
October 7, 2015, 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Description
TITLE: LON-CAPA – an open-source online homework for introductory physics courses
ABSTRACT: Physics education research (PER) shows that graded online homework that provides immediate feedback to students dramatically increases out-of-class student engagement and learning. However, commercial online homework systems can be prohibitively expensive. At the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) in Fall 2014, the speaker introduced and was responsible for the administration of LON-CAPA, an open-source online homework system. LON-CAPA was installed on the University’s IT servers in December 2014, and the fully operational on-campus system is currently being used by at least three physics instructors and one chemistry instructor at Cal Poly. LON-CAPA is free to students, and the cost to the Cal Poly physics department for use of the University’s VM servers is about $600 per year (yes, per year). Salient features of LON-CAPA are that it provides immediate feedback to students, solutions to problems are not readily available, and is easy to use for instructors.
The talk will demonstrate the mechanics of LON-CAPA usage such as: samples of HW problems; setting parameters for HW sets such as due dates, maximum number of attempts per problem, not being penalized for ‘false starts’ on problems, etc.; ready-to-use-and-modify HW sets for instructors using it for the first time; how to search the open source database for HW problems and import problems to create and/or modify HW sets; how to author problems and upload into the system.
In fully implemented mode, LON-CAPA can be used for large-enrollment introductory physics courses. The cost to students is zero, an important factor compared to commercial online homework systems. Administration cost to the UMBC physics department for use of the University’s IT servers would be minimal, approximately $1500 per year.
ABSTRACT: Physics education research (PER) shows that graded online homework that provides immediate feedback to students dramatically increases out-of-class student engagement and learning. However, commercial online homework systems can be prohibitively expensive. At the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) in Fall 2014, the speaker introduced and was responsible for the administration of LON-CAPA, an open-source online homework system. LON-CAPA was installed on the University’s IT servers in December 2014, and the fully operational on-campus system is currently being used by at least three physics instructors and one chemistry instructor at Cal Poly. LON-CAPA is free to students, and the cost to the Cal Poly physics department for use of the University’s VM servers is about $600 per year (yes, per year). Salient features of LON-CAPA are that it provides immediate feedback to students, solutions to problems are not readily available, and is easy to use for instructors.
The talk will demonstrate the mechanics of LON-CAPA usage such as: samples of HW problems; setting parameters for HW sets such as due dates, maximum number of attempts per problem, not being penalized for ‘false starts’ on problems, etc.; ready-to-use-and-modify HW sets for instructors using it for the first time; how to search the open source database for HW problems and import problems to create and/or modify HW sets; how to author problems and upload into the system.
In fully implemented mode, LON-CAPA can be used for large-enrollment introductory physics courses. The cost to students is zero, an important factor compared to commercial online homework systems. Administration cost to the UMBC physics department for use of the University’s IT servers would be minimal, approximately $1500 per year.