The University of Minnesota Libraries has created an enhanced version of the Assignment Calculator currently in beta (January 2009). It allows faculty and students to adapt their own assignments from a bank of existing assignments (e.g. research paper, speech, video, etc.) or create their own from scratch.
This new version of the Calculator is tied to University of Minnesota internet ID's; therefore you will need a password to access it. Please contact us if you need a username and password to allow you access to the beta.
We hope to make the source code for the beta available late spring 2009
Thanks!University of Minnesota Libraries
November 10, 2009
Updates to code coming
Just a heads-up that Minitex is rewriting its Research Project Calculator implementation to bring its teacher
resources into the AC beta, with an eye toward extensibility.
It will be written with on PHP / MySQL foundation to meet the platform requirements of the broadest range of potential installing institutions.
The target for completion is winter 2010.
November 4, 2009
New Lab Report (Biology) in Bionews blog
The newest assignment in the Assignment Calculator has been featured in Bionews blog: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/bioblog/bionews/2009/10/tools_to_help_with_lab_reports.html
July 31, 2009
Lab Report is live
We are pleased to announce the Lab Report assignment is live: https://tools.lib.umn.edu/ac/?assnId=180.
Step 1: Understand your assignment. Attend lab and complete experiment.
Step 2: Describe your materials and methods
Step 3: Analyze and describe your results
Step 4: Conduct library research. Develop your introduction
Step 5: Interpret and synthesize your results in the discussion and conclusion
Step 6: Write your abstract. Develop a title. Revise and rewrite
Step 7: Put lab in final form
Many instructors and staff around campus gave us feedback during the development including the Center for Teaching and Learning, chemistry, biology, veterinary medicine, mechanical engineering, and librarians from around the sciences. Thank you very much! Please let us know if you have any comments or questions.
July 17, 2009
Revisions to Research Paper
We have a rough draft of a revision to the popular research paper assignment
https://tools.lib.umn.edu/ac/?assnId=120
What do you think?
July 10, 2009
Working on Poster assignment
We have a rough draft of a Poster assignment:
https://tools.lib.umn.edu/ac/?assnId=187
Take a look and let us know any comments or questions.
June 11, 2009
Lab Report assignment
We have drafted a "Lab report" assignment for the beta version of the Assignment Calculator. We will be sharing this with faculty to get feedback and continue to edit. Take a look: https://tools.lib.umn.edu/ac/?assnId=180. Please let me know (katep@umn.edu) if you have any feedback. We hope to make this part of the Calculator in early August.
p.s. the image is part of the IMAGE collection.
February 12, 2009
Assignment Calculator in Brief
The new Assignment Calculator was highlighted in the University of Minnesota Weekly Brief on February 11
February 9, 2009
OS version of Assignment Calculator vulnerable to XSS attack
Thanks to the fine folks at the University of Portland, we have been alerted to the possibility of the Assignment Calculator code (specifically "date.php") being susceptible to a Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attack.
What this means is that using a GET method with the date.php someone could create a link to date.php that could possibly execute harmful code or forward a person to a web site seeking passwords or other personal information. For example:
A link like this:
http://www.lib.umn.edu/help/calculator/date.php?monthone=2&dayone=3&yearone=2009&monthtwo=2&daytwo=4&yeartwo=<script>alert('Hi%20Everyone!');</script>
could be sent to a person spoofing the library email address and an XSS attack may occur.
Again, the good people at the University of Portland have not only pointed out this problem, but they've also provided some simple scripting that will help people fix this problem in current installations.
The code in the ZIP file below checks for the existence of all the GET variables. Then, it checks that each entry is actually a number.
If it is a number, the code trims the number down to be 2 characters (day and month) or 4 characters (year). This prevents people putting in the year 20098 or something similar.
Again, thanks to Ronan at the University of Portland for finding this and providing a fix!
February 2, 2009
January 22, 2009
New Beta version is Up!!
After many hours of hard work by librarians, programmers and a variety of others we are please to announce a new Beta version of the Calculator is here.
New features include:
• New assignments (Video/Media, Speech/Presentation).
• Instructor control possible over steps to reflect actual due dates.
• Add/Remove/Rearrange individual assignment steps.
• Ability to add personalized notes and links to assignment steps.
Link to new Assignment Calculator: https://tools.lib.umn.edu/ac/
Due to all of the great new features of the Calculator is does require a University of Minnesota Internet ID to log in. We will be posting more information on the Beta version soon.
