WeBWorK accessibility projects

Hi,

There are a number of centers using WeBWorK that are interested insuring that our online homework system is accessible, that it meets universal design goals and can be used as widely as possible.  Using MathJax to represent mathematical equations has been a big boost in that direction.

Here is a post from Portland Community College one of the active centers working on the accessibility aspect of WeBWorK.  The summer MathFest conference will be held in Portland, OR in August 7-10, 2013 and there are tentative plans to hold a code camp in Portland devoted to WeBWorK accessibility on the three days proceeding MathFest. Details are still being worked out but if you are interested or have ideas or suggestions email me or Alex Jordan at Portland Community College.

Below is the report.

-- Mike

Report from Portland Community College

Kaela Parks: Director of Disability Services

Karen Sorensen: Accessibility Advocate for online courses

Chris Hughes, Scot Leavitt, Alex Jordan: Math faculty

Making Math More Accessible at Portland Community College

At Portland Community College (PCC), Disability Services (DS) is tasked with ensuring the accommodation process unfolds appropriately across and throughout a district serving approximately 90,000 students per year, 50,000 of whom are seeking credit.  In recent years the options for curricular content format and delivery have changed considerably, bringing new barriers, but also new opportunities for making math more accessible. Many courses are now designed around online engagement points that tap vast databases, generating individualized browsing sessions any time of day or night, giving users valuable and almost instantaneous feedback. While Disability Services can convert known problem sets ahead of time, and hire aides to serve as readers and scribes, it is not practical, nor does it provide equally effective communication, to try and address barriers on the fly.

The truth is that while there will always be some need for individualized accommodation, for example creating tactile representations of graphs, there is much that can and should be done on the front end to minimize the need for manual adjustments. If online engagement points comply with established Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and use proper structural markup for math content, users who rely on text to speech, braille translation, magnification, or voice recognition, can still typically get what they need. The content is built for flexibility. However, when these best practices are not honored, there is often no way DS professionals can ensure equally effective communication. We can’t reach behind the firewall and “fix” content by adding descriptions to images, putting equations into MathML, or redesigning the interface to ensure keyboard navigation.  What DS can do, and should do, is partner with Faculty, Instructional Support, and other stakeholders to help the institution recognize our shared responsibility to ensure equal access through ethical course design and curricular material adoption processes.

At PCC, online instructors develop their own courses within the learning management system. They choose the color and formatting of their text, the media, publisher materials and third party web sites and applications to use in their courses. And since the spring of 2012, all new and revised online courses paid for development by the Distance Education (DE) department are reviewed for accessibility. But how is an instructor supposed to know what’s accessible and what isn’t?

The Distance Education department has seen accessibility as an area that instructors need support. To that end, they hired an Accessibility Advocate who trains instructors and reviews courses for accessibility. And last fall (2012) the DE department co-sponsored with the Math department, two math faculty in their study of accessible mathematics. This subject specific study was so successful that the DE department hopes to emulate it with other academic program areas, especially in the STEM fields.

Math faculty members, Scot Leavitt and Chris Hughes investigated both the accessibility of content generated by the instructor and that which is delivered by homework management systems. In addition to studying commercial homework management systems such as MyMathLab, they ran a battery of accessibility tests (assisted by Math faculty Alex Jordan) on WeBWorK. The results from the WeBWorK experiments were superb- the screen reader JAWS was able to navigate easily around the web page and, most importantly, could read even the most complicated mathematical expression with the greatest of clarity.

WeBWorK is currently the only math homework management system fully endorsed by the Disability Services Office at PCC, and they are providing strong support in the creation of a dedicated server to host it. The server should be fully functional by the end of Summer 2013, and ready for wide-spread use across the college at some point within a year. Supporting WeBWorK in this way allows PCC to provide instructors with an alternative to commercial offerings that have known accessibility issues. By establishing our own WeBWorK server we ensure our community has access to a powerful homework management system that is more usable to more people more of the time. It also provides the institution with a means to ensure access for students who are enrolled in sections built around inaccessible engagement points by providing an equally effective alternative. 

Details of the Math accessibility study and other resources can be found at http://www.pcc.edu/resources/instructional-support/access/.

WeBWorK::Rochester::2013 October 4 - 7, 2013

WeBWorK::Rochester::2013, held at the University of Rochester from Friday October 4 through Monday October 7, was dedicated to

• putting final touches on release/2.8 of WeBWorK 
• integrating the new user interface created by Peter Staab into the development branch of WeBWorK

A small group of experienced WeBWorK developers participated in this code camp: Davide Cervone, David Gage, Mike Gage, Geoff Goehle, John Jones and Peter Staab. My thanks to all of them for their contributions to a very successful weekend.  My thanks also to Louise Wingrove for organizing the lodging and meals for participants.

This camp  and previous code camps are supported by the NSF through a national dissemination grant to the MAA. ( link to www.nsf.gov  once it is back up and running again. :-)  )

The first outcome of the camp is an updated release/2.8 which we plan to merge with the master branch on December 1, 2013.  We combined the original release/2.8 with most of the fixes and small features which have been submitted to the develop branch over the last three months.  Both release/2.8 and the develop branch have been running smoothly under moderate course loads on the MAA testcourse site and on the hosted2 site at the University of Rochester.  The activity devoted to release/2.8 over the next few months will be responding to bug fix requests, minor adjustments of features and general polishing of the instructor experience.  Very little has changed in the student interface and there have been very few requests for changes in this aspect of WeBWorK.  While not specifically adapted to mobile devices the student view of WeBWorK works acceptably well on iPhones, iPads and Android mobile devices.

Features of release/2.8 are listed on the wiki at: http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Release_notes_for_WeBWorK_2.8  
(You can type release/ 2.8 into the search box of the wiki to find it.)

You can also view all of the work involved in creating release/2.8, step by step,
viewing the commits page on github. https://github.com/openwebwork/webwork2/pull/182/commits
The most recent commits are at the bottom.

The will be more exposition about new features in release/2.8 (and some under advertised features of release/2.7) in subsequent blog posts.

It should be noted that LibraryBrowser1, although it has not changed its name, has received substantial improvements in release/2.8 from the work of John Jones.  In general it should be much faster because some of the ajax calls used in librarybrowsers2&3 have been used to speed up rendering of individual problems on a library page.  When enabled, the library page also allows for the easy tagging of library problems.  (see http://webwork-jj.blogspot.com/2013/07/webwork-opl-workshop-charlottesville-va.html for more details)

The second outcome of WeBWorK::Rochester::2013 is the integration of a new AJAX/javaScript
instructor interface, largely created by Peter Staab at Fitchburg State University, which has been merged into the develop branch of WeBWorK.  This interface provides instructors with behavior that feels more like a "google app" instead of the form based interface that we have been  used to since the mid 2000's.  Peter began work on this project during WeBWorK::Rochester::2012 held a year ago June.

One of the early outcomes was "ClasslistEditor3" which has been available as an option in both release/2.7 and release/2.8.  The current version includes the ClasslistManager (renamed and improved from ClasslistEditor3) and HomeworkManager which combines the duties of the Library Browsers, the HomeworkSetsEditors(1&2) and the Instructor tools page. The HomeworkManager's library browsing functions are built on the experience gained from the prototype LibraryBrowser2 and LibraryBrowser3 which were written by David Gage.  All of these tools have been available for testing in their embryo form on previous releases, but they have now progressed to the point where they can usefully speed up many standard instructor tasks.

WeBWorK::Rochester::2013 allowed Peter to explain in person his work and his vision to several of the other core WeBWorK developers. (Peter has not been able to attend any of the code camps since last June.)  We now have a clearer idea of what has to be done to finish the transition.  We were able to make significant strides in improving reliability during the code camp itself but much more remains to be done.

The net effect of using ClasslistManager and HomeworkManager is that instructors can manipulate classlists -- add students, change passwords, or homework assignments -- create, assign, etc. immediately.  The updates of these changes to the back end server are done asynchronously and are invisible to the user.

At the moment the develop branch is fairly wild.  Some actions don't behave as you expect or as they should;  there are many features of the older editors and browsers that have not yet been implemented in the new interface. In some cases things that work fine on small sets or classes slow down drastically when the scale is increased. We expect that it will take many months before this develop branch is ready for use on a regular basis.

On the upside -- the student interface is not affected, and so far at least there is no affect on stored data.  Since the old editors are still available one can simply switch to them for features that are not yet implemented and then switch back to the new "managers" for their added convenience on tasks where they work well.

One other thing we need to watch out for.  The new javaScript interface will initially be a step backward as far as localization (translation in other languages) is concerned.  We will be enlisting all the help we can for the translating effort but there is a lot of new and quite different code that has to be internationalized.  Similarly we are concerned about whether accessibility is helped or hurt by the switch to interactive apps.  We are using standard libraries, all of which are concerned with accessibility issues, but it will take time and we look for a lot of constructive feedback to preserve the gains in accessibility that we achieved between release/2.5 and release/2.8 and insure that these gains are not lost in this next release (most likely to be called WeBWorK3 ).

For those helping with development:

1. submit bug fixes and small feature tweaks to the release/2.8 branch
2. submit new features to the develop branch

In all cases make sure that your are in sync with the branch you will submit to before you
send a pull request.  If the commit does not merge cleanly it will be returned for more work before it is even reviewed.

-- Mike

WeBWorK::Vancouver - June 27 - 30, 2013

Hi again,

Close on the heels of our participation Sage Edu Days comes the code camp at Vancouver.

We had a significant number of first time participants at this code camp:  Alex Jordan and Chris Huges, Portland Community College; Liz Brauer, ECE department at Northern Arizona University, Nandor Sieben, Math Dept at Northern Arizona University; Nora Franzova, Langara College, Vancouver; Aori Nevo, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ.  One of the purposes of these code camp is to widen the pool of developers who feel comfortable making contributions to the WeBWorK code base.

Additional guests dropped in for part of the code camp: Davor Cubranic, Statistics dept at UBC; John Hsu, Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology at UBC; and Steven Wittens, developer of MathBox.

The remaining participants were Anneke Bart, St. Louis University; Robert Beezer, U. of Puget Sound; Mike Gage, U. of Rochester; David Gage, U. of Waterloo; Djun Kim, Myplanet Digital; Arnie Pizer, U. of Rochester and John Travis, Mississippi College.

Here are a few highlights from the code camp:

• Yoav Freund and Matt Elkerj from UCSD gave a presentation via Skype on using webwork and machine learning to discover patterns in the past_answer log that indicate that a student is floundering and to step in before this occurs with additional scaffolding. They have a video on you tube at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYqKaYckjO8 which presents this very well. There is clearly a lot more that can be done but this is a very intriguing start.
• Greg Kraus from NCSU gave a presentation on the accessibility of WeBWorK including both strengths (of which there are many -- especially when using MathJax) and weakness that can be improved. He has an initial document at 
• https://docs.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/document/d/1n1aUjAxRqAxxwfUUCf0uAj923f5QokpFu-fYUvJJPcU/ listing specific items that can be fixed in the presentation layer.  
• If you would like access to this document (and in particular if you might have time to work on some of the fixes) please write Greg (greg_kraus) at ncsu.edu.
• Aori Nevo has already started preliminary work on this and contributed a few patches to github.
• Alex Jordan and Chris Hughes from Portland Community College report that their IT/accessibility team is delighted with WeBWorK particularly compared to MyMathLab. I've asked them to write a blog post on their findings when they get a chance.
• Steven Wittens gave a marvelous demonstration of MathBox, a mathematics presentation tool built on top of three.js which allows you to "show" not explain. Examples of a similar presentations are at:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zkx1aKv2z8o
• http://acko.net/files/fullfrontal/fullfrontal/wdcode/online.html
• http://acko.net/blog/making-mathbox/. 
• MathBox itself is open source at http://acko.net/  
• https://github.com/unconed/MathBox.js
• David Gage created a package for Vagrant which allows you to set up a development site for WeBWorK on your own computer in about 5 mouse clicks and in 5 minutes. Watch David's blogpost for more details. 
• https://github.com/whytheplatypus/WeBWorK_Vagrant
• David Gage and Aori Nevo worked on a prototype white board that allows many students to draw and the drawings are echoed on the instructors board. It's built with web components which simplifies the code. There is a lot of potential here. 
• https://github.com/whytheplatypus/whiteboard and 
• https://github.com/whytheplatypus/skein
• John Travis and Jason Aubrey presented two different ways in which Sage and WeBWorK can interact.
• JT has a number of examples of using sage as an applet (sagelets?). The technology is available in WeBWorK-2.7 (the current master branch) 
• http://math.mc.edu/webwork2/sage_demos/
• Jason has added a macro that will take a program written for Sage (essentially in python) and ship it off to the sage engine to be processed and to return an answer. You might use this to symbolically integrate a function which WeBWorK would not be able to do. (This is available in release/2.8 and develop branches). 
• https://devel1.webwork.rochester.edu/webwork2/aubrey_course/AskSage/
• Both of these approaches integrate WeBWorK and the sage cell server being developed by Jason Grout and others. The technology works very well once all the connections are set up. It could still use some work with graceful failure and error reporting when one or the other of the webservices is not connecting properly.
• Alex and Chris also worked on the surprisingly difficult problem of correctly checking factored polynomials in the context of algebra and pre-calculus. It's difficult because one does not want to accept mathematically equivalent answers (e.g. unfactored polynomials) but the exact definition of simplified form is not well defined. (is 2x+1 correct? or 2(x+1/2). How about 2x+2 and 2(x+1)?). They are using Sage as one approach to the answer. It also gave rise to some serious but amusing questions about factoring polynomials over finite fields as possible approaches to the solution. I'm sure the algebra/pre-calculus students will be thrilled.
• Mike and Nandor added code that makes Chromatic.pm much more portable. (Chromatic requires a compiled C program in order to check coloring on graphs.) This should make Nandor's graph theory questions (in the NAU sublibrary) much more widely available.
• Nora was able to convert the entire placement test for Langara College into WeBWorK format.
• Liz was adding to her collection of Electrical engineering problems (in the NAU subsection of the OPL). Thanks to Davide Cervone we are dealing successfully with the use of j as the representative of the square root of minus one. :-)
• There were additional tweaks to the Library Browser, the OPL and also to MathView -- the very recent HTML5 based equation editor which is

Thanks to all who participated in another very successful code camp.  And our particular thanks
to Nora Franzova at Langara College and to Djun Kim from UBC/Myplanet Digital  for making all of the local arrangements.

Those who will be at MathFest in Hartford, Connecticut this August should drop by the WeBWorK
exhibit (part of the MAA exhibit) and say hi to John Travis and any other WeBWorKers who show up.

-- Mike

Sage Edu Days 5, June 19 - 21, 2013

Thanks very much to the folks at Sage and at UTMOST for inviting us to participate in the Sage Edu Days 5 in Seattle, WA  June 19 - 21.  Jason Aubrey, Mike Gage and John Travis from the WeBWorK team participated.  This is the third year that we have collaborated with Sage to augment the interaction between the two software applications.

As a result we have a new macro file "sage.pl" which simplifies the creation of sagelets -- plugin interacts that augment the power of WeBWorK questions.  In addition Jason Aubrey created AskSage(), a new subroutine which allows WeBWorK to query an instance of sage to have an expression evaluated.  These provide two different mechanisms for  providing high level CAS support to WeBWorK questions by remotely accessing a sage cell server.  The sage cell server has been under development by Jason Grout and the rest of the Sage team over the last three to four years.

The new sage interaction features are available in WeBWorK  release/2.8 which is now "on deck" in the webwork github site:   https://github.com/openwebwork/. Release/2.8 is undergoing final testing and bug squashing before being merged into the "master" branch.   To try it out you will want to use  the branch release/2.8 of both webwork2 and pg.  These are available by simply executing "git fetch" on an up-to-date installation of WeBWorK.  (See Github   and  release/2.7 for details.) While you are at it you should download the new changes to webwork-open-problem-library and run OPL-update to update the library database so as to incorporate the improvements made at the WeBWorK OPL workshop in Charlottesville, VA earlier this month. Preliminary release notes are available at http://webwork.maa.org/wiki/Release_notes_for_WeBWorK_2.8

More refinements and many more examples demonstrating the new sage interaction features are expected from the upcoming work at WeBWorK::Vancouver June 27-30  and the PREP13 model course workshop in Washington, DC, July 10-13.

Release/2.7 was incorporated into the "master" branch on June 15, 2013.  The separate 2.7 branch on the openwebwork site will soon be removed.

-- Mike

WeBWorK::AnnArbor, June 1-3, 2013

Hello everyone.

We've completed another successful three days of concentrated development at the WeBWorK::AnnArbor code camp hosted at the University of Michigan.

As a result  we have a new translation of WeBWorK into Chinese, a new data/database model that will support new and oft requested WeBWorK features, continued work on our collection of turnkey modelCourses and a new version (2.7) of WeBWorK that will become WeBWorK's stable release in a few days.  We also have documentation of the upgrade path for existing WeBWork installations using the SVN repository to the Github repository so that existing installations can take advantage of the new features and bug fixes and more.

WeBWorK::Raleigh -- March 7-11, 2013

WeBWorK developers from across the US and Canada gathered in Raleigh, NC to work on polishing new WeBWorK features -- some for immediate release and some for later.  The event was hosted at North Carolina State University.  Alina Duca, a faculty member of the NCSU mathematics department, handled local arrangements.  Thank you Alina.

The mathematics department building, SAS Hall, is truly gorgeous, well equipped, light and airy.  I think it's the nicest facility we've used so far at a code camp.

There were a lot of exciting developments. The details will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks as we create thorough descriptions for each feature.