Using MyOpenMath in Canvas
Randomly generated and auto-graded assessments.
Searchable question banks with many useful questions, including structured multi-part questions and questions with video hints.
Questions can be kept open after due date as practice for students.
How long will this take?
1. Once off: Creating a Course in MyOpenMath: 2 minutes
2. Creating an Assessment in My Open Math: 5-10 minutes
3a. Once off: linking of MathOpenMath to Canvas: 3 minutes
3b. Adding an assessment from MyOpenMath in Canvas: 3 minutes
If you haven’t done so already go to
https://www.myopenmath.com/newinstructor.php
and fill in the form to request an Instructor Account.
SECTION I. Creating a course in MyOpenMath
Okay so you have created a MyOpenMath account and logged in. Here’s how to create a course. The course can function as a standalone online resource or as we’ll see later you can link access through a learning management system such as Canvas
1. On the MyOpenMath Home page click on the “Admin Page” button
2. On the Admin Page under the list of courses click the “Add New Course” button
3. Now you’re on the course settings page:
Enter an LTI secret, (I use the word secret!), then click on the LTI url/key hyperlink
4. You can now see the LTI url/key.
Copy, or better, write down the highlighted key; you’ll need it later.
5. Now there’s an option to let Canvas set due dates – check that box as shown:
Next: Creating an Assignment in MyOpenMath
SECTION 2: Creating an assessment in MyOpenMath
1. In your MyOpenmath course choose Add Assessment from the pull down “Add an Item” menu
2. You’ll see the following dialog: enter a name for the assessment
You can enter a summary and intro instructions
3. Next enter date information
NOTE: Date information must be correct both in MyOpenMath and later when you add the assessment in Canvas
4. Under Core Options I like to set default attempts to unlimited:
5. Now scroll down, pausing to admire the Advanced Options, and click Save Changes
6. Next you’ll search for questions: enter search text, (in this case “Confidence Intervals”).
Then click Search All libs and Search
7. The questions will appear below the checkboxes:
Note the buttons which allow you to preview questions.
When you are ready click Add, or Add using defaults
8. If you click Add instead of Add using defaults you can modify the question settings; after modifying the settings (saying setting the points values for questions as shown), you need to click Add Questions
9. Finally, on the next screen, click Done.
Next we’ll see how to link your MyOpenMath Course into Canvas as an App, using LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) and then how to use a MyOpenMath assessment within Canvas
Section 3: Using MyOpenMath Assessments within Canvas
Preliminary Step (you’ll only need to do this once):
Install MyOpenMath as an App with Canvas
1. In your Canvas course click on “settings” in the course menu.
2. In Settings click on the Apps tab
3. Type “MyOpenMath” into the filter by name field
4. The tile for MyOpenMath will appear – click it.
5. Then click the Add tool button below the tile
6. You get the Add Tool dialog box which should be completed as shown, with the name of your MyOpenMath course (in this case Statistics), the Consumer Key, and the shared secret (see page 1).
7. Then click the Submit button
Adding a MyOpenMath Assessment in Canvas
1. In your Canvas course click on Assignments in the course menu on the left.
2. Click the Add Assignment button
3. Give the assessment a name
Enter any instructions etc.
4. Under Submission Type choose External Tool and click the external tool URL field.
You don’t need to enter the URL, as soon as you click in the field you get a dialogue box like this:
5. Click on the name you used when adding MyOpenMath to Canvas (in this case, Statistics) then click Select
In the resulting dialog click Continue
You may be asked to enter your MyOpenMath username and password at this point – you only have to do this once – this step links your Canvas course to the MyOpenMath course….
6. Now you need to choose which of your open math courses to link to
Do so using the pull down menu, (I chose Statistics) then click Create
7. Now choose the assessment you want to add from the pull down menu (I chose Confidence Intervals) and click Make Placement
8. You’ll see the external tool dialog box once more, click Select
9.Then you’ll be back in Canvas: Click Continue
10. You’ll now see the linked assessment (the first time you use MyOpenMath in a Canvas course you may be asked to login to MyOpenMath (in a dialog box in Canvas) before the assessment appears
Lastly…
I recommend letting students work on a MyOpenMath assessment in class before assigning such assessments for homework.
I would use these assessments as ungraded practice in the following manner. I would create an Assignment Category called auto-quizzes and weight that category as 0: MyOpenMath will then award points based on student responses and these scores will immediately appear in the Canvas grade book, but they will not impact student’s grades.
A progression from this practice would be include MyOpenMath in regular assignment categories so the grade counts, but to use it for low impact assessments.
