This document will guide you through many common tasks an instructor would perform in IMathAS. This is not a comprehensive guide; please refer to the help file for more detailed information on any process.
If the items on the Course Page are not appearing in the order you'd like, you can use the pulldown select box above each item to change its order on the page
If the Course Page is getting cluttered, Blocks allow you to group items together by type, week, chapter, or any other grouping. Create a new block by selecting "Add a Block" from the "Add an Item" pulldown in the grey control panel box. Then use the order select box on course items to select "Into #", where # is the current order number of the block. For example, if your block is currently in position 3, you'd select "Into 3" on a course item to move it into that block. To move an item out of the block, choose "Out of Block" from the item's order select box.
If a student has a valid reason for needing to take an assessment early or late, but you do not want to make it available for the whole class, you can make a due date exception for that one student.
Select "List Students" from the grey control box on the course page. Next to the student's name, click on the "Make Exception" link. Select the assessment you want to make an exception on. Enter new start and end dates that will apply to just this student and click "Submit"
When the end of the term rolls around, you may want to clean out your classroom in preparation for the next term. Start out by saving a copy of your gradebook, if you need it. Click on "Show Gradebook" from the grey control box on the course page. Click "Export Gradebook" to export a CSV (comma separated values) spreadsheet copy of the gradebook. This file can be opened in Excel or other spreadsheet programs.
To clear out enrolled students, click "List Students" from the grey control box on the course page. Click the "Unenroll All Students" button, and confirm your choice. This will unenroll all students from the course, clear out the gradebook, and remove all regular posts from the discussion forums. Students will still be registered on IMathAS, just not enrolled in your course
You can quickly set up the course dates for the new term if your basic schedule will similar. Click on the "Shift all Course Dates" link from the bottom grey control box on the course page. You will specify the date shift for all items by changing the dates for one assessment. Choose the assessment to base the date shift on, then select whether you want to give a new Available After date, or a new Available Until date. Provide a new date, and click submit. ALL course items will have their dates shifted the same number of days forward
IMathAS allows flexible enrollment options. It is most common to allow students to self-enroll in your course by providing them with the course ID and enrollment key. These can be viewed on the Admin page (link from the Home Page) if you forget them, or obtained from your IMathAS administrator if you do not have access to the Admin page.
Alternatively, you can enroll students in your course. If a student is already registered on the IMathAS system, you can enroll them by clicking "List Students" from the grey control box on the course page, then selecting "Enroll student with known username". Then provide the student's username, and they will be enrolled in your course. This is usually not an efficient way to enroll students in the course; it's mainly provided as a way to enroll guest users in the course
If you wish to both register and enroll a larger group of students, it is best to use the "Import Students from File" option on the "List Students" page. To use this, you will need to have at least your student's names in a comma-separated-values (CSV) spreadsheet file. These can be exported from Excel or other spreadsheet programs. Alternatively, if you just have a text file with one student's name on each line, that should work to.
As an example, at my school, we have an on-line "Instructor Briefcase" from which we can access class rosters. I highlight all the
data, copy it, and paste it into Excel, then export it as a CSV file. A line of this file looks like:
2, 555-55-5555, Doe Jane R, , UWSS, 253-555-555, janedoe@hotmail.com
To use this file, I specify that the First Name is the second word in the entry in the 3rd column, the Last Name is the first word in the entry in the 3rd column, the email address is in column 7, and the desired username is in column 2
In the Gradebook, you can click on a student's grade to view the version of the test they worked on and the answers they entered.
If you think they deserve more credit than was awarded, replace the given grade with the grade you want. Be sure to click the "Record Changed Grades" button at the bottom of the page when you're done.
If a student went over the time limit on an assessment, an (OT) will show up next to their grade. An overtime grade is not computed in the student's overall grade. To allow an overtime assessment to count towards their grade, click on their grade to view their test, and click the "Clear overtime and accept grade" link.
If a student runs into a problem and you wish to allow them to retake an assessment, click on their grade in the Gradebook to view their test. Click the "Clear Attempt" link to clear their attempt. Note that this clears all scores and attempts records for that student's assessment, including correct answers.
Course items, including Assessments and full course layouts, can be shared between IMathAS users, both on the same installation and between servers.
To share items with a user at another server, using Import/Export Course Items. For users on the same server, use Copy Course Items
To share your course, click "Copy Course Items" in the grey control box on the Course Page. Select the course you wish to copy from. If the course is not one of your courses, you will need to supply the course enrollment key to show you have permission to copy from that course. Once you have selected the course, click the "Select Course Items" button
Use the checkboxes to select the items you wish to copy. If you copy blocks along with items, the items in the block will remain in the block after copying. If you don't copy the block, the items will be placed on the main course page.
If you wish, you can append a phrase to the title of the copied items. For example, if you're copying a quiz to create a review, you might append " - Review".
Finally, specify if you want the copied items to be placed onto the main course page, or into an existing block in your course. Note that if you place items into a block, only regular items will be copied; blocks can not be copied into blocks.
When done, click "Copy Items" to copy the items.
The Getting Started guide explained the assessment options. Here are some other aspects of setting up assessments
Once you have added questions to an assessment, you can use the pulldown select boxes next to each question to rearrange the question order. This is, of course, not necessary if you select the Shuffle assessment option, which randomizes question order.
In addition to rearranging questions, you can group questions into a "mini-pool". At the beginning of the Questions in Assessment section, change the "Use select boxes to" option to "Group Questions". Then if you, for example, go to the third question in the assessment, and choose "1" for its select box, the third question is grouped with the first. When the assessment is generated for each student, one question in the group will randomly be selected. You can select as many questions as you'd like in each group, and can remove items from the group by selecting the "Ungroup" link next to the question you wish to pull out of the group.
Some questions (for example, multiple-choice questions) you may not wish to allow unlimited attempts on, while you may wish to allow unlimited attempts on free-answer questions.
When you add an individual item (by clicking the "Add" link rather than the "Add Selected (using defaults)" button), you will be prompted to enter the question's settings. You can also change settings for already added questions by clicking the "Change" link in the Settings column. You can specify the point value of the problem, allowed attempts, and penalty per attempt for individual questions. Leave the entries blank or enter 9999 to use the assessment default values
After adding questions to an assessment, click the "Categorize Questions" button to categorize the questions in the assessment. Categorization allows you and students to see a score breakdown by question category. The breakdown shows to students at the end of an assessment, and is also displayed in the gradebook when you click on an assessment to view detail.
In the question categorization page, you will see each question listed, followed by a category pull-down. By default, the list contains the names of all libraries containing the question. If you'd like to define a category not in the lists, type in the new category name in the box provided and click the "Add Category" button. The new category name will now appear in the pull-down lists next to each question, and can be selected to assign the question to that category. After assigning all questions to a cateogry, click the "Record" button.
After adding questions to an assessment, you can print one or multiple versions of the asessment by clicking the "Create Print Version" button.
On the first page, you will be asked what you would like to include in the test header. You will also be asked to enter your print margins setup. These can be found by choosing "Page Setup" from the "File" menu in your browser. In the Page Setup you may also wish to remove the default header and footer materials included in printouts by your browser.
On the next page, you will see alternating blue and green rectangles indicating the size of pages. Use the resizing buttons next to each question to increase or decrease the space after each question until the questions fall nicely onto the pages. You can use Print Preview in your browser to verify that the print layout looks correct. After you have completed the print layout, you will be given the chance to specify additional print options. Longer questions, such as those with graphs, may appear cut off in the print layout page. Be sure to resize those questions to show the entire question.
On the next page, select how many versions of the test you would like to generate, and whether you'd like to generate answer keys. After hitting continue, you print version of the test will be displayed. Choose Print in your browser to print your tests.
© 2006 David Lippman
This guide was written with development grant support from the WA State Distance Learning Council
Last Modified: 10/13/2006