WeBWork Community and Support 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Where is the official WeBWorK community forum hosted for asking questions and sharing solutions?
- Reddit r/WeBWorK
- The WeBWorK Mailing List / Google Groups (Correct answer)
- Stack Overflow
- Discord
Correct answer: The WeBWorK Mailing List / Google Groups
The WeBWorK community primarily communicates through its mailing list hosted on Google Groups.
Question 2: Which organization officially maintains and governs the WeBWorK open-source project?
- MIT OpenCourseWare
- The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) (Correct answer)
- Khan Academy
- NSF Directly
Correct answer: The Mathematical Association of America (MAA)
The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) officially supports and maintains the WeBWorK project.
Question 3: When reporting a bug in WeBWorK, which platform is most appropriate for submitting an issue?
- The WeBWorK mailing list only
- GitHub Issues on the WeBWorK repository (Correct answer)
- Sending email directly to MAA
- Posting on Twitter/X
Correct answer: GitHub Issues on the WeBWorK repository
WeBWorK uses GitHub Issues to track bugs and feature requests for its codebase.
Question 4: What is the Open Problem Library (OPL) in the context of WeBWorK community resources?
- A paid subscription library of textbooks
- A shared repository of freely available WeBWorK problems contributed by the community (Correct answer)
- A library of LaTeX templates
- An archive of student submissions
Correct answer: A shared repository of freely available WeBWorK problems contributed by the community
The OPL is a community-driven repository of WeBWorK problems that instructors can freely use and contribute to.
Question 5: Which file format is used to write WeBWorK problem source code that community members share?
- .tex
- .pg (Correct answer)
- .xml
- .yaml
Correct answer: .pg
WeBWorK problems are written in .pg (Problem Generator) files using a Perl-based syntax.
Question 6: What does the WeBWorK community's 'national problem library' allow instructors to do?
- Purchase premium problems
- Search and browse thousands of peer-reviewed problems by topic and textbook (Correct answer)
- Create video tutorials
- Generate student grade reports
Correct answer: Search and browse thousands of peer-reviewed problems by topic and textbook
The national problem library lets instructors browse and assign problems organized by course topic and aligned with common textbooks.
Question 7: What is the primary language used to write WeBWorK problem macros (.pg files)?
- Python
- Perl (Correct answer)
- Ruby
- JavaScript
Correct answer: Perl
WeBWorK problem files are written in Perl, using the PG macro language built on top of it.
WeBWork Community and Support 2
Where is the official WeBWorK community forum hosted for asking questions and sharing solutions?