Physics 271 - Fall 2016: Homework

Introduction

Homework counts 25% towards your course grade. There will be 10 homework assignments at one or two week intervals. The lowest two homework scores will be dropped. For submission and grading of homework we will use an Internet-based homework service called WebAssign. It has several advantages:

• You submit your homework assignment on the Web, and you get it graded immediately, instead of turning it in to an instructor and waiting a week to get it back.
• If any of your answers were wrong, you can retry the incorrect problems and resubmit your assignment. You are allowed up to 5 submissions, which should enable most students to achieve perfect or near-perfect scores on most assignments.
• Although every student is assigned the same problems, the numbers in each problem are randomized so that the numerical answer may vary from student to student.

Getting Started with WebAssign

To begin using WebAssign, go to the WebAssign Login page. (There is a link to this login page from our main course home page). For your username enter the first letter of your last name in lowercase, followed by ALL 9 DIGITS of your ID number.

For the institution, enter rutgers in lowercase, i.e. don't capitalize rutgers. For the password, enter your 9-digit ID number including leading zeroes if any. After you have logged in, you can (and undoubtedly should) change your password, but you cannot change your username or institution. NOTE: The above applies only to students who have not previously used WebAssign. If you have previously used WebAssign, your previous password remains valid.

If you are unable to get into WebAssign for any reason, send email to Prof. Duiliu Emanuel Diaconescu .

Although you can log into WebAssign and examine the homework assignments starting on September 2, you won't be able to submit answers until you register your WebAssign access code. You can purchase the card bundled with the textbook, or you can purchase it separately from the cashiers at either the Rutgers University Bookstore or the Cook/Douglass Cooperative Bookstore, or you can buy it online at the WebAssign site.

Here is a quick start document from WebAssign.

Changing your password and/or email address

As mentioned above, your initial password is your 9-digit ID number. Your email address in WebAssign is your eden account address. If you wish to change either of these, just log into WebAssign and click the My Options button located near the top right, just below the Logout button. That will take you to a page with buttons for changing password or email address.

After changing your password or email address, BE SURE TO CLICK THE SAVE BUTTON or else the change won't be made.

Preparing Homework Assignments

Each assignment is due on Monday at 11:59pm. WebAssign enforces this deadline very strictly, and won't accept a submission if you are even one second late. If you have a valid reason for missing a deadline, contact Prof. Duiliu Emanuel Diaconescu .

The lectures and recitations each week will give you practice in doing problems similar to the ones in the assignment due the following Monday. You are encouraged to discuss homework problems with your classmates, and the Math and Science Learning Center would be an excellent place for you and your friends to work together. Of course you should attempt the problems on your own before discussing them with your friends. If you simply copy someone else's method for solving a problem, you will not have learned it well enough for success on exams.

When you are ready to submit an assignment, note that you can enter numerical answers in a variety of formats:

• A number, with or without a decimal point, e.g. 3215 or 1.23
• In scientific notation, e.g. 1.23E5 which means 1.23 multiplied by 10 raised to the power 5. So 1.23E5 is the same as 123000. Do NOT leave a space between the E and the number before or after it. Also, do not use the notation 10^5 or 10**5.
• Your answer can make use of mathematical operators like +, -, *(multiply), the slash symbol for division, and parentheses. So one could enter 3*(6+5) which equals 33. Do not leave spaces between numbers and operators, and do not include equal signs, e.g. =3/6 is invalid.
• THE MOST COMMON PITFALL FOR STUDENTS is that WebAssign only counts an answer as correct if it is within 1% of the right answer. So in solving a homework problem, you should not round off any numbers until the very end, and then you should submit the answer to three significant figures. For example, if your answer is 0.012345, you should enter it as 0.0123 or 1.23E-2. If you enter it as 0.012, you will be marked wrong, because 0.012 differs from 0.0123 by well over 1%.
• Be careful NOT to use the letter O for zero 0, nor the letter l for the number 1. Don't enter "pi" for 3.14159.

Submitting Homework Assignments

Once you've entered your answers, click the "Submit for grading" button at the bottom of the assignment. Your assignment will be returned with answers marked correct (with a check) or incorrect (with an X). If any were incorrect, you can retry the assignment. When you are ready to resubmit, click the "Review Last Submission" button. This will bring up all previous answers and allow you to edit the incorrect ones. If you simply call up the assignment, all answers are taken as blank again, and you will need to re-enter all your previous correct answers.

• Once you click the Submit button, be patient and WAIT for a reply. If you impatiently click the button again, you will use up another of your 5 allowed submissions.
• You must allow your Web browser to accept cookies. Most Web browsers do accept cookies by default, so you should be okay unless you have explicitly disabled this feature.
• Do not use the "Back" button on your browser; use the buttons on the screen. Otherwise you may recall a cached page and your assignment might not get submitted properly.
• Be sure to click the WebAssign logout button before exiting your browser.