Mathematics Department
- BYU Home
- College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
- Mathematics Department
- Steven M. McKay, Ph.D.
Mathcourses for Instructors
What is Mathcourses?
Mathcourses.byu.edu is a web site that runs courseware called moodle. Mathcourses is actually a link to our own server. Moodle is open source software in which an instructor can provide all course materials, including grades to his/her students. It is similar to Blackboard in that you can post content on the site, create homework and quizzes for the students to master, store grades for exams, homework, etc. (whether done online or not).
Why should I consider Moodle over Blackboard?
- First, Moodle is open source. This means that the only cost that the Department must incur is the man power to install and maintain the site. Once Moodle is installed, maintainance is typically low.
- Second, Moodle is open source. If there is something that you would like to add, you only need to hire a programmer to implement it. Because of this fact, Moodle has many interesting plugins that are available at no cost to the university.
- Third, Moodle can deal with mathematical notation in a very nice way (if you know LaTeX). If you are unfamiliar with LaTeX, follow the link on the left. In my opinion, this feature makes Moodle much more accessible to Mathematics Instructors than Blackboard. In Blackboard, math content is added via a popup gui. This means that whenever you need to add mathematical symbols, you need to take your hand off of the keyboard, navigate with the mouse to click a button, click the appropriate symbol or sets of symbols, and go back to the keyboard. In Moodle, as long as you know LaTeX, you can just keep typing. Content can be created at a faster rate.
You've convinced me. How do I get started?
Mathcourses uses your regular route y id and password. However, it does not have your information until you login for the first time. Also, because of the nonstandard way that BYU does ldap, Mathcourses has no idea if you are an instructor or just a student. So, for now, (until we can kludge the ldap code, or BYU fixes theirs) the procedure is as follows:
- Go to mathcourses.byu.edu. ( No www) Login using your Route y id and password. You can log out immediately, or look around.
- Send an email to James Logan or Steven McKay asking for course creator priveleges.
- When you get a positive reply, log back in and click on the all courses link on the left.
- there should be a link entitled "Create Course" at the bottom of the page. Click on it.
- At this point, you can name your course and set it up. You may not understand what information is being requested at this point, but aside from a few pieces of information, you can come back and change the rest later.
- you will need a name and a nickname for the course, and you will need to choose the subcategory for the course. The subcategory is in a pulldown menu. Select the current semester. The name of the course should have the course number or course title, section number and semester (yes, I realize that's been duplicated, but if you use mathcourses for more than one semester, you'll appreciate it). For example,
Math 113 section 15 Fall 2006
or
Calculus II-15 Fall 2006
You will also need a nickname. This is also used in a couple of places to identify your course. Some possiblities might be:
m113-15-f06
or
cal2s15f06
If you plan to use webwork in your course (see the link at left) then make sure there are no dashes or spaces in the nickname. The nickname will be the course name on the webwork side, and they don't like anything out of the ordinary.
In moodle, it's just a name, so it could be fairly long, though that seems to defeat the reason for a nickname.
- Once you have named your course go ahead and look at the variables listed. You don't need to make any decisions now, but some of these affect how content of your course is viewed. For example, you can have the course in a weekly format, topics format, social format, etc. The weekly format is just that. You get a separate space for each week to display content. The topics format will give you spaces for the topics you wish to discuss (I usually use topics format with one topic for each chapter, but you could have one topic for each exam, etc.)
- After you've made all the decisions you want, scroll down to the bottom of the page and save the changes. You can come back to this page from the course page by clicking on the link entitled "Settings" on the left.
Further information
You can learn quite a bit about moodle just by trying things out. If you click on the link that says "Turn Editing on" (upper right) then you can start adding content to the course.
You can also go to the Moodle website. They have introductory information for instructors.
What is Mathcourses?
Mathcourses.byu.edu is a web site that runs courseware called moodle. Mathcourses is actually a link to our own server. Moodle is open source software in which an instructor can provide all course materials, including grades to his/her students. It is similar to Blackboard in that you can post content on the site, create homework and quizzes for the students to master, store grades for exams, homework, etc. (whether done online or not).Why should I consider Moodle over Blackboard?
- First, Moodle is open source. This means that the only cost that the Department must incur is the man power to install and maintain the site. Once Moodle is installed, maintainance is typically low.
- Second, Moodle is open source. If there is something that you would like to add, you only need to hire a programmer to implement it. Because of this fact, Moodle has many interesting plugins that are available at no cost to the university.
- Third, Moodle can deal with mathematical notation in a very nice way (if you know LaTeX). If you are unfamiliar with LaTeX, follow the link on the left. In my opinion, this feature makes Moodle much more accessible to Mathematics Instructors than Blackboard. In Blackboard, math content is added via a popup gui. This means that whenever you need to add mathematical symbols, you need to take your hand off of the keyboard, navigate with the mouse to click a button, click the appropriate symbol or sets of symbols, and go back to the keyboard. In Moodle, as long as you know LaTeX, you can just keep typing. Content can be created at a faster rate.
You've convinced me. How do I get started?
Mathcourses uses your regular route y id and password. However, it does not have your information until you login for the first time. Also, because of the nonstandard way that BYU does ldap, Mathcourses has no idea if you are an instructor or just a student. So, for now, (until we can kludge the ldap code, or BYU fixes theirs) the procedure is as follows:- Go to mathcourses.byu.edu. ( No www) Login using your Route y id and password. You can log out immediately, or look around.
- Send an email to James Logan or Steven McKay asking for course creator priveleges.
- When you get a positive reply, log back in and click on the all courses link on the left.
- there should be a link entitled "Create Course" at the bottom of the page. Click on it.
- At this point, you can name your course and set it up. You may not understand what information is being requested at this point, but aside from a few pieces of information, you can come back and change the rest later.
- you will need a name and a nickname for the course, and you will need to choose the subcategory for the course. The subcategory is in a pulldown menu. Select the current semester. The name of the course should have the course number or course title, section number and semester (yes, I realize that's been duplicated, but if you use mathcourses for more than one semester, you'll appreciate it). For example,
Math 113 section 15 Fall 2006
or
Calculus II-15 Fall 2006
You will also need a nickname. This is also used in a couple of places to identify your course. Some possiblities might be:
m113-15-f06
or
cal2s15f06
If you plan to use webwork in your course (see the link at left) then make sure there are no dashes or spaces in the nickname. The nickname will be the course name on the webwork side, and they don't like anything out of the ordinary. In moodle, it's just a name, so it could be fairly long, though that seems to defeat the reason for a nickname. - Once you have named your course go ahead and look at the variables listed. You don't need to make any decisions now, but some of these affect how content of your course is viewed. For example, you can have the course in a weekly format, topics format, social format, etc. The weekly format is just that. You get a separate space for each week to display content. The topics format will give you spaces for the topics you wish to discuss (I usually use topics format with one topic for each chapter, but you could have one topic for each exam, etc.)
- After you've made all the decisions you want, scroll down to the bottom of the page and save the changes. You can come back to this page from the course page by clicking on the link entitled "Settings" on the left.
Further information
You can learn quite a bit about moodle just by trying things out. If you click on the link that says "Turn Editing on" (upper right) then you can start adding content to the course.You can also go to the Moodle website. They have introductory information for instructors.