Physics 262

When you first go to the webpage http://www.webassign.net/student.html, you will be asked to fill in

• your username, the one for this class, determined by the algorithm, NOT the one for any UNM computer account you may have,
• your institution, which is unm (all lowercase), and
• your password, which has 4 numbers and 4 letters.

For your user name, take the first 5 letters of your lastname, and then put the first 2 letters from your first name, and, finally your middle initial, for a total of 8 letters---all Lower Case. If your official name has no middle initial, you will need 3 letters from your first name, instead. If, on the other hand, you have fewer than 5 letters in your lastname, again, take more from your firstname. If your firstname is hyphenated, I treated it all as a firstname, rather than treating the second part of it as a middle name.

For your password, take the first 4 letters of your firstname, and then put the last 4 numbers from your UNM ID number; in case you have fewer than 4 letters in your firstname, use more from the ID number.

In case your name seems not to lend itself to this approach, I will have a list of all the actual usernames and passwords that I assigned, and you may ask me what I decided; however, for almost all names the above algorithm should work.

You should then click on Submit, which will bring up a new webpage. Among other things it will ask you to register, and give you a warning that you will not be allowed back on if you do not register, after something like 10 days "grace period." Therefore, you should click on "click here to register." (If you want to understand more about it, in advance, you may instead click on WebAssign Student Access Code, first, and then return to register.)
On the next screen you must fill in the numbers from your ticket you received in class. This small ticket has a place where you scratch off stuff and find a number underneath; that is the number to be inserted here.
Note that even if you were in class last semester, you will still need to have a new Ticket, and to re-register with it!
Having done that, go back to the Current Assignments page, i.e., click on the button that says that you are going back there. Note that after you do that, if you decide you want to, you may change your password: there is a button at the top of the screen that gives you that option.

Now you can see the assignments that are due, and work on them as you like. You will notice that all assignments have a due date, a title, and a place where WebAssign will report your scores if you have already done some work on them. Click on whichever one you want to consider. At this point you may decide that you want a little help on how to fill out the answers. The best approach to that is the following. At the top of the assignment page, there are buttons to click. One of them is labelled Guide. Clicking on that one will bring a webpage with frames. The left-hand frame has a "Table of Contents" of these "manual pages." The right-hand frame shows the first page of those manuals, which is basically a welcoming speech.

However, looking more carefully at the Table of Contents, we see a listing of several different sorts of things: Answering questions, Submitting an assignment, Feedback, Technical Problems, etc. Looking at some of these in detail, or even printing some of them out, may be worthwhile!

Note that the directions say that you can send email for Help. DO NOT do that! Instead, if you have a problem that you cannot understand, please send email directly to me---at finley@tagore.phys.unm.edu ---and I will respond as soon as possible.

Now, let me add some helpful hints about the system and the way that I have set it up for this class.

1. You are allowed a total of 3 tries on any given assignment. Only the grade on the last try you make will be counted.
2. It is suggested that you first look at the assignment, and print out a paper copy, early in the game. Then take this copy away from the computer and make calculations that you need to determine the requested answers. This also gives you some time to discuss them with other members of your class, or me. Then, re-open the assignment and insert these answers. If, then, you find that some answers are still incorrect, you can decide if your time schedule requires you to keep working right then, or you can again go away and relax and think, and then return again.
3. If you are using the same computer as a previous student, who may also have been using WebAssign, it is important to close down that browser completely, and then re-open it in your own name; otherwise, it is quite possible that WebAssign will not recognize who you are properly, and may therefore not grade the problems and save the grades correctly.
4. Using the "Back" button is generally a bad idea when dealing with WebAssign. It is much better to use the buttons provided to Submit, to go forward, etc.
5. When you have finished entering the data to answer the various homework problems, click on the "Submit" button. The computer will then grade your problems, give a little chart indicating how many points you received for each assigned problem, and how many points were possible. As well it will re-display the assignment, with big red "X"s marked near the problems which it deems to be incorrect. [In general each part counts 1 point, although I may sometimes change this aspect, with differing points. If I have done this, it will display the number of points for each part.] You may then correct them, and re-Submit the problems. You are allowed a total of three chances to Submit, with the computer counting for your grade the last one you submit. The WebAssign program will show you the correct answers for the problems AFTER the time they are due. However,
   I also create complete solutions myself. They are usually made available on the day after they were due. The link to access them is underneath each particular assignment, on the homework-assignment webpage.