rawr physics

[Shadow]

I just got 3 our of 4 parts of a ridiculously hard physics problem. The 4th should be straightforward plugging stuff in and cancelling variables, and it is, but the stupid system they use for homework submission doesn't like the format I use and keeps telling me I'm wrong (which I'm not ^_^).

Please share your stupid administration stories so I can commiserate and possibly not put my laptop through my bedroom window for being a moron.

[bjornredtail]

I had a calc teacher that used this online system from the publisher of the book. It's a pain in the butt to have to do your math in front of a computer, I say.

We have a system for turning in programming assignments online, but it's pretty good. It's just a program on our central UNIX servers... Just handin teacherAccount assignment files... Works like a charm.

Yeah, web apps are overrated... Except RWL and FAF, of course :)

[Shadow]

yeah it's fromt he publisher of the textbook - I have to use it for physics and chem assignments, and for comp sci I have to pass stuff in online as well but the format is a bit more open there so it doesn't annoy me as much.

[windhound]

My Elements of Control (feedback systems) teacher started playing with the online stuff this semester
It didnt work out so well, the online grading system was way too picky and had a horrible input system...  no copy/paste, and it tried to make your answers 'pretty' as you typed them.  It gave you three submits, but changed the numbers;  on those long problems changing the values was no small matter, it meant you had to rework the entire thing from the start and still try to figure out what went wrong.  On a multi-part problem it would have you submit everything at once, but mark the whole thing wrong with no indication of -what- was wrong
We had enough trouble that he scrapped it and we just turn stuff in on paper per normal, which is much nicer

But yeah.  I've used other online systems that weren't as bad, mostly because the answers it was looking for were simple numerical answers (with a 5-10% margin of error builtin) and not long symbolic eqns