Once you have logged into MasteringAstronomy.com and registered for this course, read the "Getting Started" introduction in the "Learn More" box on the right.

Assignments: Click on the “Assignments” tab at the top to see the list of the semester’s homework sets and practice quizzes with their due dates. Just click on the appropriate homework or quiz assignment to access it.

Homework Assignments: Each week's homework assignment will usually consist of a tutorial (see instructions, below), several interactive exercises (sorting/ranking tasks where you drag and drop images), and some multiple choice/true-false questions.

The first assignment is “Introduction to Mastering Astronomy.” This is to help you learn how to use the website and homework system. You must complete this by the end of the second week of classes. This assignment is "for practice" -- there are no points assigned to it, so don't worry if you don't do well.

Tutorials: The tutorials are very instructive and will help you grasp the course material. Do any assigned tutorials before attempting the rest of the homework assignment.

Tutorials consist of several parts, and it will take you some time to work through them. There are informational screens, interactive screens that help you grasp ideas and concepts, and multiple choice questions along the way. To improve your score: See the information about the "Study Area" below.

To save work on and/or submit Tutorial Problems:

• To save what you've done so far and quit without submitting the tutorial for grading: As you work your way through a tutorial (which can have many parts), if you want to stop, you can just click the red "X" in the upper right where it says "Close." The tutorial will save your work automatically.

• To submit a completed tutorial for grading: Once you close the tutorial by clicking the red "X" in the upper right corner, it will return you to the "launch page." In the box, it tells you the score you will receive if you hit the orange "Submit" button below the box. Once you have submitted a tutorial, you cannot to any more work on it, so make sure you're really done with it before submitting.
  

Grading of problems: All problems, tutorials, and quizzes done under the Assignment tab are automatically graded. Under Help, click on the little book next to “Using MasteringAstronomy” to open the folder, and then on “Working Problems.” Near the bottom of the page is a link to “How Grading Works.” The Tutorials and Skill Builder problems are usually multi-part; other problems will be multiple choice. You are not assessed a penalty for wrong answers as you work your way through a problem, except for multiple choice problems, which are graded as follows:

For each unique wrong multiple-choice answer a student submits, he or she loses 1/(n-1) points, when n is the number of options to choose from. For example, if there are 4 possible answers, the student will lose 1/3rd of the points for each wrong guess.

Tutorials are graded 50% for completing every section, and 50% on the multiple choice questions in the summary at the end.

Hints: There is no penalty for accessing any available "hints" for a problem UNLESS the hint includes a question you are supposed to answer. You will lose partial points if you answer any questions contained in a hint incorrectly. You are rewarded for not using hints however: you get a 2% point bonus for each unopened hint (so your maximum possible score would be a 102%, for example).

Solutions: You may request to see the solution of a problem, but only after you have attempted all the parts and opened all the hints. If you request the solution, you get no points for the problem however. Once the due date has passed, you may access the solutions without penalty. When reviewing for an exam, you may find it helpful to go through your previous homework assignments and look at the solutions.

Late assignments: A late charge applies if an assignment is turned in past the time it is due as follows: Credit for problems submitted late will decrease by 5% each day; after 20 days, the problem will be worth 0% credit.

Quizzes: Reading, Concept, and Visual quizzes: These are multiple choice questions and are graded as such. These are intended to help you learn, so they will have you keep working on a question until you get the right answer.

To start, choose the best answer, and then click the “submit” tag attached to the question. If you get it wrong, it will come back with “X attempts remaining” where X is however many attempts you have left. However, remember that partial credit is deducted for each wrong answer, so no matter how many attempts it says are left, if there are, for example, 4 possible answers, you only have 3 attempts total as you lose 1/3rd of a point for each wrong answer, so after 3 wrong answers, you will end up with 0 for the question.

There is no deduction for using a hint, but if you don’t use it, you get a 2% bonus on the question.

Continue working on the question until you get the right answer.

You must do each question individually, hitting the “submit” tag before moving on to the next question. You cannot click the answer for more than one question at a time and submit, you must submit each question separately.

Once you have successfully submitted all the questions for the quiz, you must hit the “submit problem” at the bottom of the quiz page to submit the entire quiz.

To improve your quiz grades:see the information under the "Study Area" tab section, below.

The "Study Area" tab: On the top is a tab that says "Study Area." Clicking on this will open up a new window with a menu on the left. This menus includes access to the eText if you bought the ebook, and links to various tools to help you study and learn the material. These links include access to practice versions of the Reading, Concept, and Visual Quizzes, as well as to the Self-Guided Tutorials. Any work done under the Study Area links is NOT graded, and you may repeat tutorials and practice quizzes here as many times as you like.

I suggest that you work through both the tutorials and the practice quizzes under this Study Area first, before doing them for credit by accessing them through the Assignment tab. Redoing the practice quizzes is a good way to study for exams, too.

More information and screen shots are available under the "To work a self-guided tutorial from the study area" under the "Self-Guided Tutorials" link in the "Learn More" box on the right side of the page in MasteringAstronomy.

Feedback: for each assignment, there is an area for you to provide feedback to both your instructor and to the people that created and maintain the MasteringAstronomy website. Please fill these out so they can know how to improve the website, and so your instructor knows of any issues or problems. Feel free to provide positive as well as negative feedback!