Undergraduate Teaching in Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks (UTMOST)
Undergraduate Teaching in Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks (UTMOST)
Level 1 Support
|
Grant Name |
Principal Investigators |
NSF #/ ID # |
Grant Duration |
|
Undergraduate Teaching in Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks (UTMOST) |
Vilma Mesa PI, U Michigan vmesa@umich.edu |
NSF 1624634 |
9/15/16-8/31/19 |
Abstract: The UTMOST 2.0 project will design, develop and study innovative approaches to the teaching and learning of undergraduate mathematics using open software and electronic textbooks. This project will study students' use of electronic textbooks when these are made freely available in a variety of formats and on a variety of devices. These textbooks will support interactive computation through a seamless integration of Sage, the leading open-source computing system for mathematics. The main vehicles for this integration will be SageMathCloud, a rich online environment for computation and collaboration between students and their course instructor, and Sage cells, self-contained interactive calculation modules that can be embedded in any web page while requiring no software installation or prior knowledge of Sage, because the commands are pre-loaded. Additionally, UTMOST 2.0 will support the further adoption of MathBook XML, an authoring platform that enables the creation of highly functional, open-source textbooks--in particular, textbooks which can exist both in print and in an online format that contains Sage cells. The project includes technical improvements to Sage cells which will make it easier for instructors to create their own Sage cells for their particular course needs. A catalog of Sage cells will be curated, which will further lower the barrier to widespread adoption.