open/low cost HW platform for Astronomy?
by Janelle Wertzberger 3 months, 2 weeks agoI’m looking for recommendations of open or low-cost homework systems that can be used with OER for astronomy. This is currently one of Gettysburg College's most expensive courses for non-majors, and the planets have aligned (ha!) so that the department is now able to consider moving away from commercial materials (currently Cengage WebAssign).
Ideally, the system has an auto-grade option, but also the ability to grade by hand. We are open to using questions that correspond to a book (ideally, imported into the system so we don’t have to re-key questions) but also need the ability to add new ones. The instructors want to use it for both homework and quizzes.
Are you using anything on your campus that is working well?
Thank you in advance! Janelle
I'm not sure how low-cost you will need. I switched to ExpertTA a few years ago because it was cheaper than the previous homework system I was using. It follows the OpenStax textbook, and I've been happy with it. If you are interested, we can talk more.
I will definitely add this to the list I am compiling for a professor (I am a librarian) and offer to connect you with my colleague.
Right now our students are paying about $163 for 120-day digital rental of the book and HW platform. We generally consider $40-50 to be our "low cost" threshold. How much does ExpertTA cost per student (if it's okay to ask)?
The last time I used ExpertTA, it was $35 per semester for each student.
Very helpful - thank you!
We have an active astronomy community at MyOpenMath which work on completely OER options for Homework Systems. Most of Andrew Fraknoi's multiple choice questions from his Astronomy 2e OpenStax Text are in the libraries and there are even a few online-only labs you can choose from.
Our library currently has 1000 active questions being used across 20 different campuses around the world.
I am happy to help set-up what you might need or answer questions.
Thanks for the tip! Our math department here at Gettysburg College is already using MyOpenMath, so this could be a logical step for the physics department.
Adding this to the list I am compiling for the astro prof! (I am a librarian)
Default settings are that they would be in the same "group" on MyOpenMath since they are in the same campus. If we get a critical mass, I would love to start a cross-campus collaboration.
There is also quite a lot of physics on MyOpenMath (LaGuardia Community College Physics, for one, uses MyOpenMath as its main homework platform).
Very promising - thanks!
im using https://digitaliser.getmarked.ai/ to convert the openstax astronomy question bank,a word document to QTI for use in canvas. The only real downfall is that you have to go back for each chapter and select which one is the correct answer for each question.
Thanks for this excellent lead!
Unlike many of the other OpenStax books, Astronomy also has a course package that includes the question library, at least in the D2L version. There are also download cartridges available for Canvas and Blackboard, though I'm not sure where the question library is integrated.
Also, just FYI, most or all of the publisher questions are available on Chegg, etc. I like to build at least some of my own questions for homeworks and quizzes to limit ability to google answers, but the course cartridge makes a good starting point.
Unfortunately, the question library is not part of the D2L cartridge, but I think if OpenStax adopts assignable for Astronomy, that could happen. We have the entire suite uploaded to MyOpenMath now and occassionally I go through and muck around with the questions to mess up the Chegg cheaters :)