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Online Math classes from Professor Siegel

Each instructor has different policies regarding their online classes.

Professor Siegel’s policy regarding technical difficulties related to students’ computers & internet connections is as follows:
“A few people [in previous semesters] have had a big problem concerning exams. While I am sorry for the difficulties those few have experienced, I cannot change my policy and procedures to accommodate them at the expense of fairness to everyone else. So let me reiterate one more time: if you are locked out while taking an exam, for any reason, you will receive a zero for that exam. I cannot distinguish one failure mode from another so to preserve exam integrity, I will continue with my policy and not change it. You have the [non-graded practice] quizzes, which I keep turned on, and which you can retake to make sure your system works. If you cannot trust your own computer system, you are welcome to come to campus and use the very reliable computers in our computer lab in the LRC. Finally, while online classes provide certain benefits, they carry certain liabilities. And so, if you do not feel comfortable working within these boundaries, rather than trying to change these boundaries, I recommend that you drop the course.”

For Professor Siegel’s Online Math classes, your computer system will need a couple Java plug-ins to be able to view the equations in the quizzes and tests. Here is information regarding these free plug-ins:

WebEQ Viewer Installation Documentation

In order to install the WebEQ Viewer, you must have 2 additional components:

- Java Plug-in for your web browser
- JavaScript Enabled

I recommend installing version 1.4 of the Java Runtime Environment, which can be found at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html along with the latest version of your web browser.

We’ll need to make sure that these 2 components are installed and functioning correctly before proceeding with the WebEQ Viewer installation. The following link will allow you to test your browser’s current Java capability via the Java plug-in. http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml

At this link, you will find the following webpage. If you scroll down to the bottom of it, you should see text that says “Test your JVM”. If you can see the moving image beneath this text, your Java plug-in is functioning correctly. (See the following screenshot)

screenshot of Java website

Next we need to make sure that JavaScript is enabled. In order to do this, visit the following website: http://ce.byu.edu/is/share/help/scriptTest.htm

This page will tell you various things about your system, the most important being whether or not JavaScript has been enabled.

screenshot of Java website

After running the above tests successfully, proceed with the MathML player installation by following the instructions on the following webpage, which also contains the download.

http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/download.htm