There have been many changes in the latest updates to the data processing tool; some of them date back to last spring, but we forgot to mention them.
Histograms can now be drawn from one or more data series:
New options have been implemented for importing and exporting data:
The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm for automatically fitting a model to experimental data has been recoded. It now works on more cases. In addition, uncertainties on model parameters are calculated:
A menu of fitting options has been added. It includes a wealth of information accessible via icons (i):
Here’s a new feature long requested by teachers. In missions, it is now possible to propose “shared labdocs”. All mission designers have to do is click on a small box when adding a labdoc:
A shared labdoc is common to all reports defined in the same team-up. This means that all the students in these reports can modify the labdoc, always in turn.
As you can see, a shared labdoc behaves very differently from other labdocs. This is why the teacher’s choice is final. The teacher cannot stop the sharing of a labdoc, nor can he/she transform a classic labdoc into a shared labdoc. Shared labdocs are always at the end of the report section, and cannot be renamed, deleted or modified by students.
Best practice seems to be for students to have their own labdoc and copy-paste their data into the shared labdoc. If they need to process data from the whole class, they duplicate the shared labdoc, which then becomes their own report and can no longer be updated by other students.
It’s official: the LabNBook plugin for Moodle is now in the Plugin Directory de Moodle. The latest version (1.1.4) was released today.
What does this mean? The plugin has been validated by Moodle. Administrators of Moodle platforms at universities are therefore more inclined to install the plugin on the platform they administer.
What does this plugin do? It creates a link between your university’s Moodle and a LabNBook platform. More information here and here.
The tool’s interface has changed a little, and the protocol looks more like a “classic” laboratory protocol. We hope that the tool is more mature and easier for students to use.
The most important new feature is for teachers. The new tool makes it possible to propose experimental design activities to students. From a pedagogical point of view, we are convinced that such an activity is beneficial to the understanding of the experiment carried out in the lab. The new tool makes it possible to create pre-structured protocols to support the design of the experiment for students.
A word of advice: to configure the protocol labdoc, you need to be familiar with the basic protocol tool (the one accessible to students by default).
The first new feature lets you add labdoc-level instructionsto a mission.
Currently, instructions are limited to the report parts. If teachers want to provide more specific instructions for a labdoc, they can write directly in the labdoc, but this leads to confusion: the instructions area is not separated from the students’ writing area. And these instructions can be deleted by the students and thus lost in the course of the work…
So we’ve added the possibility for mission designers to add “labdoc instructions” when they edit a mission:
In their report, students can view this instruction by displaying the assignments in the report section or by editing the labdoc :
The second new feature is the “teacher report” for each mission. This teacher report can be a solution report to share within a team of teachers, or a report containing “correction” labdocs that you can import into your students’ reports when they have completed their work. Unlike the “Test” report, the “Teachers” report is saved permanently. Only mission designers can modify it. Tutors can only view it. With this new feature, teachers will hardly ever need to use their “student space” again.
Where can is this report? In the “Missions” tab, click on a mission and a new icon will appear in the top right-hand corner of the table:
These are the new LabNBook features that many teachers have been asking for.
If there’s one aspect of LabNBook that students dislike more than paper documents, it’s writing equations!
And with good reason: writing an equation is always faster on paper… even if you are the king of Latex.
3 years ago, we integrated a tool for writing equations, with a choice of a Latex editor or a graphical interface. This was a first step in the right direction, but unfortunately the tool remained rather buggy and didn’t always produce very comprehensible Latex.
Some time ago, a new, more robust open-source solution emerged: MathLive. We have adapted it to meet the needs of our students. It’s now available on the LabNBook server.
As well as making the tool more sophisticated, we’ve included two time-saving features for students:
A “formulas” menu lets you write some of the classic formulas found in our training courses with a single click.
A button displays the result of the calculation, so you don’t have to use the calculator. Please note, however, that the Latex must be well-formed for the calculation to take place…
Please don’t hesitate to give us any feedback you may have, especially if you notice any missing symbols or formulas, or if you find any of our choices questionable. We’ll do our best to ensure that writing equations on a digital tool takes as little time as possible.
