Your browser must be configured to accept cookies, to allow pop-up windows and, to use JavaScript. Generally, it is a good idea to set up your browser to verify each document every time it is loaded, rather than to use a cached copy. That will ensure that you have the most up-to-date version of every assignment.
SticiGui assignments combine forms, instructions, and interactive tools to reinforce the material presented in the chapters and to assess your understanding. The assignments use two frames. The upper frame has the instructions and a form for your responses; the bottom frame has tools you might need to solve the problems, such as graphs, calculators, etc.
To access the assignments, you must provide the following identifying information:
last name, first name, student ID, email address.
At the bottom of the instruction frame, after all the questions, there are three buttons: one to submit the assignment for grading, one to save your intermediate results on your computer, and one to clear the answer form.
You must click the submit button to send your answers to be graded.
After you click the submit button, you must click another button to confirm that you really want to submit your answers for grading.
Click the "OK" button once only—if you double-click, it will submit your answers twice and you will lose one of your chances to submit the assignment.
The window that contained the problem set will show a confirmation screen (from AutoGrader) giving your score and telling you how many times you have submitted the problem set so far. It might take up to 30 seconds for the confirmation screen to appear, depending on web and server traffic. Be patient. If you get the confirmation screen, the server definitely received your submission. You can also see your scores by clicking the "My Scores on Past Assignments" button near the top of this page, just below where you type in your login information.
If you open the problem set after the due date, there will be no "submit" button.
To see your grades, you need to enter your name, email address, and SID, to protect your privacy. Click the button just under the assignment list, near the top of this page. Also, if you go back to the assignment after the due date, you can see the correct answers to your unique version of the assignment.
Many of the questions and data in assignments have a random component. Different students get different questions and different data. You are graded based on the questions and data you receive. Differences in question wording can be subtle: If you work with other students, be sure to answer your version of the question.
You can save intermediate results on the assignment using a button at the bottom of the instruction page—sort of. The assignments also save themselves as a cookie on your computer when you submit them. Because the cookie is stored on your computer, you cannot access the answers from a different computer (or even a different browser on your computer). Warning: Cookies are volatile, not reliable. Some events will cause or require your cookies to be deleted. And they "expire" after a few days. Always write down your answers on paper in case the cookie is deleted. You've been warned.
You can use different computers for different assignments. After filling out the identifying information at the top of this page to access the assignments, your browser will look for a cookie with a record of your previous work on the assignment on your computer. If it finds a cookie, the assignment will fill in your previous answers. That is the last thing that happens when the assignment loads. Be patient. Do not scroll, click or type while the assignment page is still loading. If the computers does not find a cookie, the answer fields will be blank.
Questions with multiple-choice answers. There are two types of questions with multiple-choice answers. The first kind allows you to select only one response. The second kind asks you to "select all that apply." How to select more than one answer depends on the computer operating system and browser. In Firefox on unix and linux systems, click each answer you want to select; clicking an answer again de-selects it. On Windows systems, hold down the control (ctrl) key while clicking each response to select more than one. On Macintosh systems, hold down the "command" key while you click to select multiple responses. In such "multiple-multiple-choice" questions, if you select an answer that is not correct, or fail to select one that is correct, you will not receive credit—there is no partial credit.
Numerical answers. The grader strips commas from numbers, so you are free to punctuate numerical responses. If your response includes a percent sign at the end, your numerical answer will be converted to a percentage (divided by 100). Scientific notation (e.g., 4.23e-7 as shorthand for 0.000000423) will work; do not put a space between the digits and the letter "e." Questions that do not have an exact numerical answer accept a small range of answers as correct. The precision required depends on the problem statement. When in doubt, don't round off your final answer. In this class, there is no such thing as an answer that is "too precise." Never round off intermediate calculations.
The chapter exercises accept arithmetic expressions as answers, but these submitted homework assignments, graded by the server, do not. For instance, if the answer is supposed to be 50%, the SticiGui in-chapter exercises will accept 50%, 0.5, 1/2, 50/100, 1/sqrt(4), etc., as correct. But the homework assignments—the problems you access through this login page—will only accept 50% or 0.5. The server will count 50/100 or 1/sqrt(4) as wrong answers.
Most technical problems with the online book and assignments have one of three causes:
If you can't log in, be sure you selected your course from the drop-down menu.
If the server says you have submitted the assignment more times than you remember submitting it, you might have double-clicked the "OK" button. The server cannot mis-count the number of times you submitted the assignment.
If, when you try to access the problem sets, you get an error message that starts like this, delete the cookies (see below):
Bad Request
Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Size of a request header field exceeds server limit.
Cookie: 0x....
Cookies are small text files stored on your computer. SticiGui uses cookies to store your answers to assignments to homework assignments on your computer and to remember your student ID when you log in to do an assignment or check your scores.
Cookies are not reliable: many things will cause them to be deleted or require them to be deleted. You might get an error message that you need to clear the cookies in your browser. When you delete the cookies, the answers stored on your computer will be erased, but the server will still retain your submitted answers and your scores—only the record on your computer is affected. Current browsers allow you to delete cookies easily, but the command is in different menus in different browsers and on different operating systems.