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It is hard to imagine teaching my course, [no comma] [on] business statistics, [no comma] without giving students many opportunities [an opportunity] to practice what they are learning. For that reason, I routinely assign lots of [In the past, I have routinely assigned] problem sets and lab assignments.

However, it has always been a trial to make those assignments with paper submissions. Serious drawbacks of assignments turned in on paper include: [no paragraph break] [But having students submit these assignments on paper has had serious drawbacks, including:]

• Substantial delay in returning the assignments with feedback.
• Little opportunity or incentive for students to rework problems on the basis of feedback.
• Heavy instructor grading load and incentive to make too few assignments. [delete or phrase more clearly]

Characteristics of WebAssign

WebAssign is not a close substitute [replica] of WebCT, Blackboard, or similar software for creating [used to create] course web [Web] sites. Rather than providing a range of [provide]tools for all aspects [every aspect]of a course, the [WebAssign's] developers have focused almost entirely on creating highly functional homework software. Because of this focus, its homework functions are [that is] considerably better than those [the homework functions]of the more general software. Fortunately it is possible to have the advantages of both types of software by linking from a course site to WebAssign. [And for instructors who want to use WebCT or Blackboard for the majority of their course functions, it is possible to link to WebAssign from another site.]

WebAssign is a very [delete or use: highly] versatile tool. It allows for internet [Internet] delivery of several types of questions -- [, including] numerical, fill in the blank, multiple choice, [and]essay, etc. [.] These questions can include just about anything that can be conveyed with HTML, including formatting, tables, images, sound files, video files, Javascript or Java applets, etc. [formatting and tables, images, sound and video files, Javascript and applets, and so on.] With the help of a scanner, even handwritten notes, [or] paper images, etc., [delete]can be converted to electronic form and included [in the assignment].

[no paragraph break] It is easy to build in random elements, so that each student receives a different set of numbers or terms in the problem. The WebAssign folks have provided an excellent set of sample questions linked through the "demo" item on their information page. [(For a set of sample questions, click on "Demo" from the WebAssign information page.)]

WebAssign grades questions automatically (except for the [delete] essays) and can immediately deliver back whether each is right or wrong (wrong answers are marked with a big red X). I can allow the students [and allows] multiple submissions, even unlimited submissions, so they [so that students] can keep retrying the ones they miss. A motivated student will keep working until all those X’s are gone. I particularly like this feature, since it means students can focus on areas of difficulty and resolve all problems. It also rewards hard work. A student need not be brilliant or lucky to get all the problems right. The feedback and resubmission process allows any student to do it. [This feature rewards motivation and enables students to focus on problem areas.]

[no paragraph break] This resubmission capability [This also] makes WebAssign particularly helpful for courses delivered entirely over the web. Students in such courses often feel more cut loose from help than lecture students [they have less access to help than traditional students]. WebAssign's machine grading [delete] gives [addresses this problem by giving] them timely information to monitor their progress. I myself recently took an online course that used WebAssign. The machine feedback was absolutely essential. It also provided strong motivation, both from a sense of accomplishment (intrinsic motivation) and from satisfaction with getting a good grade (extrinsic motivation). [During an online course I recently took that used WebAssign as its homework tool, I found that this feedback essential and strongly motivating.]

Some of WebAssign's other advantages include:

• Enforcement of deadlines. It is easy to make an assignment due at any time of the day or night. The enforcement is impersonal. (It is possible to grant individual extensions.) Being freed from having due times only at class meetings adds valuable flexibility. [There are two separate points incorporated here: (1) enforcement of deadlines. (2) deadline flexibility. I'd suggest separating these points out and elaborating just a bit.]
• Ability of the instructor to post assignments at any time. [Flexibility in posting assignments.] Like deadline flexibility, this means that [delete] assignment distribution is not limited to class meetings. If an instructor is not prepared to give out an assignment on Thursday morning, but does not want to wait until Tuesday, he or she can post it Thursday night or Friday. The class need not wait for another meeting to move forward.
• Essay questions. [Collecting essay responses.]No, [While]WebAssign cannot grade essays automatically, at least not yet. However [delete], it can be a big help in the collection of [collecting]short essay answers. It can present all student answers at once for one [at one time all answers to a] particular question, and in doing so it can strip off [can remove] student names for instructors who want student identities to be unknown while they are grading [prefer anonymous grading]. And it automatically requires students to type answers rather than scribbling them.
• Peer grading of essays. Essay answers can be delivered to peers for evaluation. This allows students to gain a broader perspective on a question and on the variety of ways an answer might be written. This is a new capability of WebAssign that requires careful planning in its use but has great potential.
• Ease of giving [Providing] instructor help. The instructor can call up [review]all answers a student has given for a problem set, including both [delete]current answers and previous answer attempts, to look for sources of difficulty. There is a Help Desk through which students can submit questions for answering [to be answered]by teaching assistants or by [delete]the instructor.
• Ability to enter programmed hints. The instructor can program each question to yield hints under certain conditions. For example, it is possible to make a hint that becomes [delete] available only after the first or second submission (discouraging students from using the hint immediately as a crutch). One can also make the hint depend on the answer given.
• Security. The software works well with security systems. A student has access to only [only to] his or her own records. Instructors have access to only [only to] their own classes.
• Item analysis of questions on an assignment. [please expand]
• Archiving of class results. [please expand, include why this is useful]
• Facility to make complete grade records accessible to students. [Student access to grade records.] Using a simple format, [delete] WebAssign allows the instructor to upload a detailed set of grades in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. [Students can view their grades from there.]Of course, the system is secure, so only the given student sees the grades.[Since the system is secure, each student sees only his or her own grades.] Providing up to date grades serves as a strong motivator, as well as allowing [and allows] students to call attention to errors in the grade record.

WebAssign is based on large Sybase datasets run on servers maintained at North Carolina State University. To access these servers, faculty log on through a screen like the one below. The lower navigation bar shows the main functions available. They include class creation and management (managing the roll and the dates of the class) [not clear - do you mean this: creating and managing class rolls and meeting dates], assignment management, question editing, grade management (with access to student work), and a help desk feature through which students can pose questions. [managing assignments and grades (with access to student work), editing questions, and a help desk.]

new subtitle: Developing questions. The core of WebAssign is its questions ["its questions" is unclear. do you perhaps mean its questions feature?]. An instructor can create his or her own questions and can also [or] use questions from a textbook (modified to fit the electronic format) or questions [or those] developed by other instructors.

[no paragraph break] Developing simple questions is easy. The software includes a straightforward question editing screen that allows development and testing of questions.

[no paragraph break]Here is a screen shot of the main section of the question editor with a simple multiple choice question [delete]. The answers to the question—in this case, a multiple-choice question—are listed on separate lines with the correct answer first. In an assignment the answers are presented in random order.

Below is the editor again, this time with a numerical question. This question is somewhat more complex than the one above because two of the numbers in the problem are generated by a random number function (appearing in the "eqn" tags). These random numbers mean that there are many versions of the problem containing the same situation but different numbers. Each of the two random numbers in this problem has 11 possible values, giving a total of 11*11 = 121 different possible versions of this question.[delete, I think - the extra explanation does little to clarify.] Answers to the two parts of this question appear as formulas based on the results of the randomly generated numbers.

[no paragraph break]Numerical answers such as these inevitably have rounding error. To account for that possibility, WebAssign builds in a margin of error of plus or minus two percent. This tolerance setting can also be set at a different level by the instructor.

New subtitle: Developing assignments.To develop an assignment, the instructor selects from the available questions and then specifies some properties of the assignment. Among the properties of an assignment are [, such as] the date and time it becomes [is to become] available to students, the date and time it is due, and the number of resubmissions allowed. The most common way of creating an assignment is to duplicate and then [copy and] modify an assignment from an earlier semester.

[no paragraph break]Here is an entry in the assignments list of a course. The [This display summarizes the] basic properties of this [the]assignment are summarized here [delete]. At the left are links allowing the instructor to start creation of [create] a new assignment, search for assignments with particular characteristics, or edit the current assignment. (The "Save", "Duplicate", and "View" commands are inoperative here but become active when [in] the editing screen is called up for an assignment [delete].) Other assignments are accessible either by specifying an assignment number or by using the "Search" feature.

Some problems
Like any complex piece of software, WebAssign is not perfect. I am aware of some problem areas. The first [Its first problem] is that entering complex questions into the WebAssign database can be a lengthy process. Some instructors (early adopters) [delete] have entered many [delete] problems themselves. In physics at NCSU they put teaching assistants to work adapting [, while others use teaching assistants to adapt] problems from textbooks and entering them into the database [delete] (but only [delete] with permission from the publishers). The Department of Physics at N.C. State has now entered large problem sets from several texts. Each set is available to adopters of the relevant text.[delete]

[no paragraph break]Hopefully publishers will recognize the value of supporting question entry and will make a set of WebAssign questions available with adoption of a text, in much the way they make available many other supplementary materials.

A second problem area is technology (the flip side of a source of advantage). The technology is very enabling. It also carries two significant detractions. One is that it must be learned. Students go through a short break-in period (less so on my campus than initially, as an increasing number have already used it in physics and math). Instructors have more to do, so their required learning is somewhat greater even than for students. [the extra time it takes students and instructors to learn the new technology.] Learning requirements for instructors are eased by a tutorial and by the availability of training to adopters of the software [delete, explain "availability of training": something like this: optional on-campus training sessions sponsored by campus technical support services.]. In addition, there is an active WebAssign Users' Group that meets periodically. [I'd suggest fleshing this out just a bit more, referring to the questions posed by Critic W, who asked whether the help menu was "for both faculty and students" and wrote: "Does the software provide a tutorial?  Does the vendor provide user training?  [W]hat kind of tech support does the vendor provide?  24/7?"

The second technology [A third] detraction is dependence on servers, Internet connections, and browsers, etc [delete]. Servers sometimes crash, internet [Internet]lines sometimes fail, some students are still using older browsers that lack functionality, etc [and so on]. Of course, anyone who uses computer and internet technology would foresee these problems. [delete]Hosting of the system by the N.C. State staff reduces these problems [These problems are reduced since the system is hosted by N.C. State][define what kind of staff,] because they [who]are intimately familiar with the software.

A third [The final] problem with WebAssign, and probably with any online software, [—one that it shares with other online software—]  is that we cannot know for sure who is actually [delete] completing the work. WebAssign does require a password, but a student can certainly share that password with others. (To be sure, Tthis same security problem applies to most paper-delivered homework as well. The only way I know to be sure a student completes his or her own work is with a proctored test.)

How I use WebAssign

I have used WebAssign for large sections and small [in both large and small sections], for undergraduates and [as well as] graduate students. Over the past two years I have developed a collection of questions and from them a set of assignments for each course. During a typical semester I present on average one homework [assign, on average, one homework set] per week, plus additional practice tests.

[no paragraph break]To create an assignment I usually duplicate one from a previous semester and adapt it for current use. Each assignment is available to the students a week or two before the due date. After that date, I download the results in spreadsheet form. In the case of essay questions, I first call up all student answers question by question, entering [then enter] a grade for each student’s answer and providing [provide]comments that become available to the student as part of the online assignment record [delete].

Results

The WebAssign staff has done extensive polling of [extensively polled] students who use the tool. Among their findings from a poll of 2000 students are these results:

• 93% find WebAssign "very easy" or "fairly easy" to use.
• 71% find that "doing homework on WebAssign is more beneficial than traditionally-graded homework assignments."
• 77% find that WebAssign helps them learn material for their classes.

There is firm evidence that completion by a student of [successful completion of] WebAssign questions is a good predictor of success in a course. Two colleagues and I did a study recently comparing [recently compared] results in an online and a traditional lecture section of a course. As a side issue we looked at the relationship between course success and completion of WebAssign questions. We found that for every 6 questions completed (out of a total possible of 239) we could predict that the final examination grade of a student [a student's final exam grade]would rise one percentage point. Of course, we were not able to distinguish between the effects of homework completion in general and homework completion on WebAssign. Our results do [nonetheless]demonstrate that completing WebAssign questions is an effective way to prepare for a final exam.

Pricing
WebAssign is licensed by North Carolina State University. The price includes a per-teacher fee and a [and] per-student fee. For the first instructor in an institution using [who uses] the software, the fee is $250/year the [a year for the] first year and $100/year [per year] thereafter. For additional instructors at the same institution, the fee is $50/year [per year]. The student fee [fee for university students] is $5 [five dollars]per student per class [delete, insert comma]per term for universities and $3 [delete, insert period.] For high school, middle school, and elementary schools, the fee is three dollars per student per class [delete, insert comma] per year for high school and below [delete].

[no paragraph break]These fees are for a service hosted on N.C. State servers. That service includes [cover] maintenance of a database containing student and faculty data, as well as question and assignment data [database maintenance (the database houses student and faculty data, plus question and assignment data)] . It also includes [and] technical support. The cost of these services should be evaluated in light of the time freed up from grading and the improvement in pedagogy. [In light of WebAssign's advantages, these fees are a bargain.]

[no paragraph break]Individually arranged licensing is available for institutions desiring to run [that host] WebAssign from [on]their own servers. For further details on pricing, check the pricing link on the information page.

A complete WebAssign manual is available at http://www.webassign.net/manual/.

Copyeditor's comments:
The author has written a clear and informative article, and has addressed the most significant comments by reviewers. I might suggest that he add a sentence or two to address some more specific technical questions from critic HH, who wrote: "How much technical support is necessary from your local system administrator? Installation? Compiling? Special log-in arrangements? FTP access? Any tweaking of servers? Special directories? Root access?" The author could answer this quickly with a few sentences at the end of the paragraph that begins "The third detraction is dependence on servers, Internet acces..."

I would also suggest that the author carefully consider the closing comments of critic AB, who wants a more critical response to what most reviewers considered a steep price for WebAssign.