MAA PREP workshop: Problem Authoring (WeBWorK)

Last summer I did a PREP workshop on authoring problems in WeBWorK. The presentations by John Travis, Davide Cervone, Gavin Larose, Paul Pearson, and others were wonderful. This MAA sponsored workshop was conducted online and ran for several weeks on Mondays.

If you had told me even two years ago that I would be attempting to write problems I would have shaken my head sadly, and muttered something along the lines of “the poor dear is delusional”. But here I was learning about writing essay questions, multiple choice and multiple select questions and how to randomize the variables.

I was really glad to hear that one of my colleagues had decided to jump into authoring problems at the same time. It was really nice to have someone to compare notes with and ask questions of.

The initial “intimidation factor” may be there for many out there, but take it from someone who has taken the jump: It is not as hard as it looks. My advice would be:

• If you can find a colleague to work with, then that is a big plus. Being able to trouble shoot with someone close by is really useful.
• If you do not have someone close by, you can still get a lot of help from the online forum. WeBWork Forum Link
• Start with existing problems and modify them. I would look for problems similar to what I wanted to do and then just adapt them to my needs. This includes finding a problem and adding random variables, modifying multiple select questions, etc. I have even passed on templates to colleagues who are now coding their own reading questions.
• Writing you own problems from scratch is hard (well, for me it is). If you cannot find a template in the problem library, then go to the WeBWorK wiki and browse through the author pages there. There are many templates available and I have found it relatively easy to adapt them. Link to WeBWork Author Resources
• Do take your time. It can take a while to write a good problem (even when adapting an already existing one). And document your work. Include what course this is for, what text it is from (if applicable), and write the solution part. It is sometimes tempting to skip the latter when in a hurry, but then that may never get done and the comments may be very useful to students!

I have been writing questions myself for reading quizzes I give my students, and to create questions for placement tests. But that is something I will talk about in later posts.

- Anneke