Hi everybody, I hope you’re all doing well! It’s been two months since I sent out a newsletter, so this issue contains a LOT of important updates about PhysQuiz.net:
- *NEW* “Solve for” option to choose wanted values on most quizzes!
- *NEW* Significant Figures Quiz problem type – rounding!
- *NEW* dimensional analysis problems added to SI Conversions Quiz!
- *NEW* ease-of-use features for the Dashboard!
- More new features, bug fixes and other improvements
- Site licenses for 2024-2025 school year
*NEW* advanced “Solve for” option on most quizzes!
I’ve spent a lot of time recently going back and updating all of the quizzes on PhysQuiz.net that involve calculations to give teachers greater control over what students “Solve for” in the assignments they create. I ran into this issue when I assigned the Motion Graphs Quiz to my own CP Physics students and it generated acceleration questions about velocity vs. time graphs before we had gone over acceleration, so it inspired me to add this as an advanced option to the quiz:
Once I added the new “Solve for” feature to one quiz, I realized I should add it to as many of them as possible! The following quizzes now have the new “Solve for” advanced option:
- Circular Motion Quiz
- Coulomb’s Law & Electric Fields Quiz
- DC Circuits Quiz
- Density Calculations Quiz
- Electric Current Quiz
- Electric Potential & Capacitance Quiz
- Electromagnetic Induction Quiz
- Friction & Inclined Planes Quiz
- Gas Laws Quiz
- Geometric Optics (Mirrors & Lenses) Quiz
- Light & Energy Quiz
- Linear Momentum & Collisions Quiz
- Linear Motion Quiz
- Magnetism Quiz
- Motion Graphs Quiz
- Newton’s Second Law Quiz
- Physical Optics Quiz
- Refraction Quiz
- Rotational Motion Quiz
- Simple Harmonic Motion (Springs & Pendulums) Quiz
- Torque & Rotational Dynamics Quiz
- Universal Gravitation Quiz
- Work, Energy & Power Quiz
I did my best to prevent weird behavior and bugs, so choosing to only solve for acceleration while also selecting only linear motion problems with constant velocity will just generate problems with the default settings. I recommend trying out the “Solve For” advanced option before you use it to create an assignment – you can use it directly from the options form of every quiz that has it.
Advanced options are only available to teachers with an active site license for the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard, so if you’re interested in trying them out, sign up for a free 30-day demo by filling out the Teacher Interest Form.
*NEW* Sig fig rounding problems!
One of the most popular quizzes on the site is the Significant Figures Quiz, so I added a new problem type – rounding!
Here’s an example of some of the problems the quiz can generate:
I also added problem explanations for rounding by sig figs:
Try out the new rounding problems on the Significant Figures Quiz and let me know what you and your students think!
*NEW* Dimensional analysis problems!
I’ve had a number of teachers ask me to add dimensional analysis and unit conversion problems, so that’s what I did! The rebranded SI Conversions & Dimensional Analysis Quiz has the following new problem types:
I know a lot of teachers have already covered dimensional analysis at this point of the year in their Physics classes, but I figured the new problem types could be used for review before an exam, and conversions are necessary throughout the school year. Let me know if there are any additional conversions you’d like to see added to this quiz, and I’ll see what I can do!
*NEW* Dashboard features!
I’ve also added some new features to the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard based on teacher feedback so that it’s easier to use for everyone.
New “Settings” menu
First, for better organization, I created a new “Settings” menu and moved “User Settings”, “Dashboard Settings”, and “School Info” under there:
New assignment order option
Also, teachers can now change the order in which their assignments appear on their students’ Dashboard! To change the order, go to Settings > Dashboard Settings:
You can change the display order directly on the Assignments page by selecting “Update order of assignment(s)” in the bulk actions menu and then using the dropdown menus in each row:
You can also change the assignment order when you’re creating or editing an assignment. Please note that this currently only changes the order in which assignments appear on your students’ Dashboard, not teachers (this feature is coming soon). Thanks to Don for this suggestion!
Display score percentage
You can now see score percentages on both the Results and Grades pages by hovering over a student score:
Thanks to Jana for the great suggestion!
“Helpful resource” links to free online textbook
When I created independent student accounts, I looked for a free, well-made online textbook that students could use to learn or review a topic before taking a practice quiz. After looking at numerous options, I felt that OpenStax Physics was the most robust and complete, so I included links to specific chapters for each assignment that I’d created for those students.
To make everyone’s lives easier, I’ve now added a new feature for teachers to add these links to the top of assignments! Simply create a new assignment or edit one you’ve already made, and after you’ve selected the quiz-specific features, you’ll see an option like this:
In this example, these chapters are for the Linear Momentum & Collisions Quiz. You can preview the chapters when you create or edit an assignment, or you can see all of the chapters for each quiz on the Quizzes page (you have to be logged in to your Dashboard account in order to see them). I know a lot of schools don’t hand out textbooks any more, and I’ve found that some online textbooks from big publishers are nearly impossible to use, so I hope this resource helps!
Export results as “grid”
I also added the ability to export your score results as a CSV file in a “grid” format (like how they’re displayed on the Grades page):
This would be most useful for those of you who store your grades in a spreadsheet such as Excel or Google Sheets, or want more control over how they’re imported into your existing LMS. Thanks to Jason for this suggestion! Please note that the grid format will only export the highest score that a student earns for each assignment.
New option to auto-archive student results
I also added an “auto-archive” feature to help teachers keep their student results better organized! To activate it in the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard, go to Settings > Dashboard Settings, then check the box next to “Automatically archive student results two weeks after submission”:
If you select this option, every day at 5am Eastern Time, any student results that are at least 2 weeks old will be archived (but not deleted). This should help keep your Results page from getting out of control!
New filter menus on the Grades page
I also added filter menus to the Grades page that work just like the menus on the Results page:
Assignment link displayed after creating or updating
One last new feature that I added should make it a little easier to share your assignments with your students. Immediately after you create or update an assignment, the share link appears at the top of the Assignments page:
I hope these new features make the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard easier to use and they save you some time! If you don’t have a site license for the Dashboard but you want to try out these new features, please fill out this short Teacher Interest form for a free 30-day demo!
Finally, all of these new features are also available on ChemQuiz.net, so if you also teach Chemistry or have a colleague who might be interested in trying it out, please fill out the ChemQuiz.net Teacher Interest form for a free demo!
Other new features, improvements and bug fixes
I’ve made lots and lots of updates to PhysQuiz.net over the past two months! Here’s the complete list:
Dashboard – these features and bug fixes also apply to ChemQuiz.net
- new feature: export results in a grid format similar to the Grades page (thanks, Jason!)
- new feature: option to add links to helpful resources at LibreTexts to the top of assignments
- new feature: option to auto-archive old results after two weeks
- new feature: link to share an assignment appears at top of page immediately after creating or updating that assignment
- improvement: can now see score percentage on Results and Grades pages by hovering over a score (thanks, Jana!)
- improvement: created new “Settings” menu and added “User Settings”, “Dashboard Settings” and “School Info” submenus
- enhancement: option to export all students, even if they don’t have any results (thanks, Zack!)
- enhancement: option to sort exported results by class and then by student name (thanks, Jason and Anna!)
- enhancement: added yellow highlight on Grades page for results that were submitted late (thanks, Elizabeth!)
- enhancement: add filter menus and page number links to the Grades page
- bug fix: students with deactivated accounts from last school year could not use a join code to re-register for a new class (thanks, Chris!)
- bug fix: couldn’t change an existing assignment to Continuous mode if it already had a certain number of items (thanks, Pamela!)
- bug fix: the number of questions on an assignment would reset to 10 if there was an error on the assignment creation form (thanks again, Pamela!)
- bug fix: couldn’t delete exam sections (thanks, Kenneth!)
- bug fix: couldn’t modify a student account if the same username was already in the users table, even if it was inactive or deleted (thanks, Lance!)
- bug fix: adding filter menus broke the bulk actions menu on the Assignments page
- bug fix: not selecting “export highest score” would generate an error message at the top of the csv file
- bug fix: students without first or last names would cause errors when exporting results as a csv
- bug fix: student Dashboard was trying to show resources for each exam section even if a section had no resources
- bug fix: an extra “Add another section” button was showing up when editing an exam
- bug fix: sort assignment tags alphabetically on Assignments page
Exams
- bug fix: tab switches were not being recorded correctly for exams (thanks, Darlene!)
- new feature: advanced option* to choose wanted value for quizzes with calculations
- new feature: can now show instructions above every question in Continuous mode (thanks, Maggie!)
- new feature: teachers can use advanced options directly from quiz page
- new feature: disabled ability to paste answers on all quizzes
- bug fix: quiz completion time would sometimes save without taking the student’s time zone into account, which would cause the time to be off by several hours (thanks, Racquel and Susan!)
- bug fix: sig figs in negative numbers were not being counted incorrectly (thanks, Lance!)
- bug fix: time zone diagnostic information was showing at the bottom of quizzes for students completing assignments
- bug fix: density problems solving for m or V in kg/m^3 and g/L were off by a factor of 1000 (thanks, Scott!)
- bug fix: answers were calculated using density values directly from the database instead of rounded values given in the problem (thanks, Elaine!)
- correction: number of neutrons in U-236 was incorrect (thanks, Susan!)
- bug fix: un-initialized array was crashing the quiz when multiple choice options were generated (thanks, Lance!)
Electromagnetic Induction Quiz
- bug fix: sometimes all four multiple choice options for theta are 0°
- new feature: advanced option* to restrict wavelengths to meters only (thanks, Helen!)
- new feature: added option to change distance label to ∆x
- bug fix: sometimes all four multiple choice options are 0 (thanks, Sharon!)
- correction: two beryllium beta decays were incorrectly producing beryllium daughter isotopes instead of boron (thanks, Matthew!)
- bug fix: progress on multiple choice questions was not being saved (thanks, E!)
- new feature: added explanations (solutions) for all problems
- new feature: advanced option* to generate problems with only positive or negative exponents
SI Conversions & Dimensional Analysis Quiz
- new feature: add dimensional analysis and other conversion problems to the SI Conversions Quiz & renamed it to the SI Conversions & Dimensional Analysis Quiz (thanks, Shauna, Andrew, Matt, Patrisha, and Zack!)
- new feature: add moles and candelas to SI Conversions Quiz (thanks, Joel!)
- new feature: advanced option* to exclude specific SI prefixes (thanks, Ryan!)
- improvement: better number formatting
- bug fix: options for features that weren’t published yet were being used for assignments (thanks, Zack, Scott and Lauren!)
- bug fix: quiz was showing the wrong answer for SI conversions if previous answer was dimensional analysis (thanks, Lenora!)
- bug fix: inch-centimeter conversion was flipped (thanks again, Lenora!)
- bug fix: Liter-to-gallon conversions weren’t calculating the correct answer (thanks, Scott!)
- new feature: added problems to round numbers to a certain number of sig figs
- new feature: added option to choose thousands separator for numbers (commas, spaces or none)
- new feature: added solution setups
- bug fix: student answers entered as words instead of numbers (e.g., entering “two” instead of “2”) were crashing the quiz (thanks, Lan!)
- bug fix: answers in scientific notation weren’t being graded correctly (thanks, Rhonda!)
- bug fix: numbers in scientific notation weren’t being rounded with the correct number of sig figs (thanks, Avyukth and Rhonda!)
- bug fix: guesses for some division problems weren’t being graded correctly (thanks, Zack!)
- bug fix: answers entered as words instead of numbers were crashing the quiz (thanks, Lan!)
- bug fix: rounding answers less than 1 without a leading zero were being scored as incorrect (thanks, Scott!)
Other improvements
- new feature: Quick Start Guide for new teacher accounts on Documentation page
* advanced options are only available to teachers with an active site license for the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard
Thanks again to everyone who has sent in a suggestion or bug report! I try to fix bugs as quickly as possible, and I want to make the site as useful and easy to use as possible, so please let me know if you have a suggestion or bug report!
Site licenses for the 2024-2025 school year
Thanks to everyone who has purchased or renewed their school’s site license for the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard for the 2024-2025 school year! Site licenses help me pay for the web hosting and software I use to write the quizzes, and it keeps the website ad-free.
If you’d like to purchase a 12-month PhysQuiz.net site license or renew your existing license, you can pay in one of the following ways:
- credit card through Square (the most popular option)
- school purchase order (contact me for a sales quote – I’m also happy to fill out any paperwork required by your institution or state, and I’m now an officially registered business in New Jersey, too! 😂)
- personal check
- CashApp, PayPal, Venmo or Zelle at chris@physquiz.net
Additional schools in the same district can purchase an add-on license for 50% off at just US$35 per school. If you also teach chemistry or you have a colleague who does, you can bundle a site license for the ChemQuiz.net Dashboard for just US$35 more! Please contact me if you have any questions about how to purchase a site license.
Site licenses also help me offer the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard for free to public schools across the United States with high rates of poverty. If you teach in a high poverty public school or school district (at least 50% of your students on free/reduced lunch or designated “economically disadvantaged”), please send me a link to the supporting documentation and you’ll get a free site license for the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard forever (ChemQuiz.net, too!).
Help me share PhysQuiz.net with the world!
If you like using PhysQuiz.net, there are three quick and easy things that you can do to help me promote the site!
- Add your school to the list of supporters on the About page! Simply go to the PhysQuiz.net Dashboard, click on “Your Info” in the top menu bar, activate the box next to “Display School on PhysQuiz.net“, and click the “Update Your Info” button.
- Tell another Physics teacher about PhysQuiz.net and encourage them to try out the Dashboard!
- Follow @PhysQuizDotNet on X (formerly Twitter) and share my updates with your fellow Physics teachers!
Wow, that was a lot! 😅 Thanks so much for your continued support of PhysQuiz.net. Please reach out to me via the Contact form or at chris@physquiz.net if you have any questions or concerns. Take care, and good luck with the rest of this semester!
-Chris
