Welcome Jason! WeBWorK is an interesting project. It appears that the site has some tasks that are appropriate for newbies to open source and there are good directions for developers on where to start. This could provide some interesting student projects!
Heidi Ellis Heidi J. C. Ellis Chair and Associate Professor Department of Computer Science and Information Technology Western New England College 1215 Wilbraham Road Springfield, MA 01119-2684 el...@wnec.edu http://mars.wnec.edu/~hellis -----Original Message----- From: tos-boun...@teachingopensource.org [mailto:tos-boun...@teachingopensource.org] On Behalf Of me Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 10:35 PM To: tos@teachingopensource.org Subject: [TOS] Introduction Hi All, I've just joined the list and I'm writing to introduce myself. I'm a mathematician at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. I'm closely involved with the WeBWorK project (webwork.maa.org). WeBWorK is an open-source perl-based online homework system for math courses. It's widely used: http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/WeBWorK_Sites Compared to publisher based systems, WeBWorK is far more sophisticated in terms of the mathematics it can handle. But, the publisher systems tend to be shinier. :) WeBWorK began development iin 1995 by Profs. Arnold Pizer and Michael Gage at the University of Rochester Department of Mathematics. It is now supported by a team of developers from several institutions and is used for a variety of subjects. Also, the Mathematical Association of America, one of the two main professional societies for mathematicians, has recently 'adopted' webwork. They host courses for math courses around the country and provide us with server space for our svn repositories, forums, wiki, and mailing lists. WeBWorK is also supported by the NSF. We're very much trying to 'do' open-source right; we have a great community of math faculty from around the US and abroad who use webwork at their institutions, write documentation, contribute on the fourms, author webwork problems, and contribute to webwork development. But, we're pretty much all mathematicians by training (rather than developers, technical writers, community managers, etc.), and in spite of the longevity and success of WeBWorK so far, we could learn a lot from people involved with other open-source projects. So, I was very excited to come across the teachingopensource.org site, and I'm looking forward to learning from you all and contributing where I can. If you're interested to know what kind of development is going on, the following page on our wiki lists some ideas we put up for a Google SOC application for last summer (sadly, not funded). http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Google_summer_of_code_projects And, I invite you to take a look at webwork and let us know if you are interested in contributing. For development, knowledge of perl, javascript or html5/css3 would help, but like any other open-source project, there are a lot of ways to get involved. Also, to that end, we would be very much like to explore the possibility of participating in the POSSE program. We've communicated some with Mel about this, with the idea of perhaps running a POSSE program either alongside or in support of a workshop that we already have in the works. This past summer, a colleague and I submitted a proposal this summer to the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), to run a so-called PREP (Professional Enhancement Programs) workshop at the end of June 2011 intended to bring together professors from around the country interested in contributing to WeBWorK. Happily, that has been funded, and perhaps there is an opportunity for collaboration here. But, either way, I'm excited to be a part of this community, and, well, that's my introduction! Thanks, Jason -- Jason Aubrey, PhD Office: 219 Math Sciences Department of Mathematics Office Phone: (573)882-4473 University of Missouri - Columbia Voice Mail: (573) 416-0784 Mailing Address: 202 Mathematical Sciences Department Fax: (573)882-1869 University of Missouri Department Phone: (573) 882-6221 Columbia, MO 65211 USA _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos _______________________________________________ tos mailing list tos@teachingopensource.org http://teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
