OpenStax Astronomy

See also OpenStax

Resources from OpenStax Astronomy also available on Wikiversity
Chapter summaries (pdf): 01 - 02 - 03 - 04 - 05 - 06 - 07 - 08 - 09 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30


 * Textbook may be viewed here or at File:Openstax Astronomy-LR.pdf. Also included in this resource are online versions of the powerpoint slides at Category:Openstax_file/Astronomy.

OpenStax Astronomy

 * OpenStax Astronomy (also available directly here)


 * Latest online version


 * These pdf copies of the author-supplied Powerpoints might be more convenient to use during a lecture.

Resources being developed on Wikiversity
This is a redacted copy of an email sent to the student who wrote the best term paper in the first effort to use the Miraheze wikifarm at Wright State University Lake Campus in the Spring of 2017.

A thank-you note to Annie Isabelle Anonymous
Dear A.I.A,

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_Life_in_the_Universe.pdf

Your Astronomy project resides at the link shown above. I removed your real name and also password protected the pdf file. It should be possible to edit it using an Adobe editor using the password ****. You can use knowledge of that password to convince potential employers that you are the author of this impressive document.

I will request that all future reports of this nature follow the format you invented: A detailed summary of a chapter of a freely available textbook, with up  to 100 multiple choice questions embedded into the document (in the future, the answers will be in a key at the end of the document). To be sure, many of your questions would be "bad" on an exam that would be used to assign a grade. But, an instructor using a document like yours could point out the "good" questions during the lecture. Or, the "good" questions could be extracted and stored on a private wiki to create a bank of questions that nobody else can see. Or, the instructor could edit your text on a wiki to better suit his or her needs. Perhaps you (or somebody else) might wish to discuss this further at the talk page shown below.

https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/File_talk:Anonymous_Life_in_the_Universe.pdf

Also, in the future, it would be better if the document were on a private wiki where students can write a term paper without looking at each other's efforts, and create a document that would be easier for instructors to use and edit. I am currently using Miraheze for this purpose. At the moment my little "wikifarm" looks like this:

https://wright.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=672

Let me know if you need a letter of recommendation. And, "Annie": THANK YOU !!!

Yours truly --User:Guy vandegrift

Quizbank/Entire_bank
Pros:  Compatibility with all public and private wikis, and the ease with which anybody can use Python to create and edit these exams. The "conceptual" questions use the wikimedia quiz extension, but the "numerical" questions would require a high-level language to create the wikitext. These numerical questions typically come in 10 or more versions that have randomized numerical values. I currently use Matlab to create these exams, but will soon switch over to Python (which I recently learned).

Cons:  Quizbank creates exams with a rather amateurish format. They are rendered on a wiki and printed out as a pdf file. For example, Quizbank/Sample_rendition can be be printed to create four midterms and a final exam (in two versions) for a a conceptual course in physics. Students can use this this  studyguide to prepare for the exams. A more serious first-year introductory physics course requires numerical questions where the students practice using different numerical values. A studyguide for such a course can be found here.

OpenStax True False progress
By the end of summer I hope to have a large collection of simple reading questions for this book. If you want to contribute leave a message at User talk:Guy vandegrift.

Osmosis
Pros:  Much better developed, larger in scope, and more professional.

Cons:  At the moment only does medical board exams. Costs money for the student.

www.testpreppractice.net/CLEP/Physics-CLEP-Practice-Tests
Pros:  It's already been done! (but I just learned about it)

Cons:  We don't have a textbook (something for Wikiversity to fix?)