PHY 109: Astronomy and Cosmology The Solar System
Fall 2003 Prof. Cote's Website • Astronomy at Rutgers • Department of Physics & Astronomy • Rutgers University
Last updated August 1, 2003
Web Assign
Weekly homework will be assigned and collected on-line on the web using the WebAssign system. All assignments must be submitted through the web, using a browser. You must purchase a WebAssign access code, available at the bookstores. You can use your own computer, or any of the Rutgers student computing center machines. For information on the latter, see:
http://rucs.rutgers.edu/services/instruction/index.html
If you are registered for this course as of September 2, I will have created a WebAssign account for you, and you should be able to log in to WebAssign.
The account is initially set up as follows:
1. Your username is composed by the first letter of your last name, plus the last 6 (six) digits of your student ID (usually your social security number)
2. Your password is simply your student ID (usually your social security number), 9 digits, with no spaces or dashes in between.
For instance, if your name is Joe Doe, and your SSN is 123-45-6789, then your WebAssign username is d456789, and your password is 123456789. Notice that if you have used WebAssign before, your username and password have been reset using the convention mentioned above.
If you are unable to log into WebAssign using the convention explained above, please send me an email at pcote@physics.rutgers.edu, with your name as it appears on your student ID card and your student ID (generally your SS#). I will create an account for you as soon as possible.
To log in, point your web browser at:
http://www.webassign.net/student.htmlYou should see the WebAssign login screen. You may login by entering the following three pieces of information:
- Your username (as described above).
- The host institution: rutgers. (Important: you must use a lowercase "r").
- Your password (see above).
If you are registered for more than one Rutgers course using WebAssign, you will have a list of courses to choose from: this course is Phy109. If you are new to WebAssign, please read the student guide on the WebAssign home page for information about the system.
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Access to WebAssign is free for the first two weeks. By September 14 or so, you must have purchased and entered a WebAssign access code in order to continue to do the homework for the rest of the semester.
Note that when you purchase the textbook for this course, a copy of the WebAssign access code is included. If you prefer to buy your textbook at someplace other than the University Bookstore, then you will need to purchase an access code separately. They are available at the University bookstores, or on-line from WebAssign, which is slightly cheaper but requires a credit card. The code will last two semesters if you purchase the FULL TEXTbook; if you purchase Volume I only, the code is good for only one semester.
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4. Finding and Completing Your Assignments
The homework assignments will be listed on your WebAssign home page, along with their due dates. You can open any assignment by clicking on it. The questions in each assignment will include multiple-choice, true/false, and short answer items, etc.
Your answers are not saved until you submit them: when you have completed an assignment, don't forget to click on the submit button at the bottom of the page to send in your work! The system will accept only three attempts at each assignment. If you wish to revise your answers, you can retrieve a previous submission, edit your answers, and resubmit the assignment, but the third submission is your last chance to change it. Your final submission is the one that will be graded.
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The questions will be posted at 6pm on the Wednesday before the assignment is due. It is a good idea to print off the questions and think about them before attempting to submit any answers. Answers can be submitted at any time before the deadline, which is one minute before midnight on Tuesday night.
IMPORTANT: because homeworks are handled by a computerized system, No homework submissions will be accepted after the deadline. Therefore, do not wait until the last minute to submit your assignment! Any number of things can (and, as a matter of fact, do) go wrong. You might lose your internet connection, the submission might not go through properly, the server could be overloaded, or your watch could be wrong, to name a few. Be aware that most computer clocks are notoriously inaccurate. The clock that determines the actual deadline is the clock of the WebAssign system, which could be ahead of that on your local computer!
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The WebAssign computers will grade the multiple-choice and True/False questions automatically and immediately after the deadline, but your essay questions need to be graded by a human. The Rutgers grader, a teaching assistant, will take about a week to assign scores to all the sort answer questions, since this is a very large class. Since the computer initially assigns a perfect score for any short answer question, whatever it says, your score is not final until the grader has assigned a score. This means that your score on the assigment, which you can see immediately after the deadline, is not your final score. It could, and generally does, decrease a few days after the deadline. You should be prepared for this to happen.
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Recommended web browser to view this site is Netscape Navigator 4.0 (or above) with video display supporting at least 256 colors.
High color (16 bit) or true color (24 bit) display is preferred.