Möbius : Frequently Asked Questions
(Formerly Maple TA)
The personnel at the help centre will not answer any technical
question about Möbius. They do not have the expertise and privileges
to do so. They are there to help you with the mathematics.
You must access your
assignments using only the links in BrightSpace. Read the
answer to the question
to find out why.
You may work with other students on your homework problems but you
will normally have slightly different questions to encourage each
individual to work through the problems on their own.
Letting another student log into your Möbius account or
BrightSpace account, or logging into another student's account, is
academic fraud.
You should download a PDF copy of your assignment, take the
time to carefully solve the problems offline, and then go back to
your assignment to enter your answers.
Where can I buy the license to access Möbius?
The first time that you do an online assignment, you will be
asked to buy the license to use Möbius. The detailed instructions to
purchase the Möbius license are found on the website
. Though not compulsory, it is suggested to use
your @uottawa.ca email on the registration form.
The license is valid for three terms including the session that
you buy the license. So, you may use it for more than one MAT
course.
What should I do if I always get an error message
when I try to buy the license using PayPal?
First and foremost, your first assignment must open in a new tab of
your browser after you click on the link for the assignment in
BrightSpace. If the assignment open inside BrightSpace, you should
tell your instructor to modify the link so that the assignment open
in a new tab.
If you still get error an message or are timed out when trying to pay
your license, you must:
- Make sure that your browser is well supported. Read the answer to
.
- Make sure that your browser accepts third party cookies. For
more information on this subject and on other issues that may cause
problems, consult the website
.
- Make sure that your browser accepts popups.
The most frequent problem lately is about the country of
residence when paying the license with a credit or debit
card. The country of residence is the country where you got your
card. Despite selecting the write country, you may still get an
error message. The problem is that PayPal is not very good in
geography. Even a country like France (that everybody should have
heard about) may not be recognized by PayPal. In that case, you
should select USA-other.
If after all that you still cannot buy the license using PayPal, use
Ask the Möbi chatbot on the website
. If the Möbi chatbot cannot answer your
question, then you will have the option to forward it to the
DigitalEd support team.
What should I do if I always get the Möbius login page
when I click on a link for an assignment in BrightSpace?
- You must verify that the links to Möbius assignments in
BrightSpace open in new tabs of your browser when you click on
them. If they do not, ask your instructors to make it so.
- Your browser must allow third party cookies as explained in the
question
.
- Some browsers do not respect the industrial standards. Read
the answer to .
- You must clear old cookies from Möbius and DigitalEd before
trying again to access Möbius assignments through the links in
BrightSpace.
If you still have the same problem after having done all that, then you
should use Ask the Möbi chatbot on the website
. If the Möbi chatbot cannot answer your
question, then you will have the option to forward it to the
DigitalEd support team.
Are my operating system and browser supported by
Möbius? How to Troubleshoot my browser issues.
You should not have any problem using Möbius if you have the
latest version of your operating system and browser running on your
computer. There may however be some exceptions. To find out
which operating systems and browsers are supported by Möbius, please
visit the website .
If your operating system and browser are supported, you should consult the
website to get a list of suggestions to address the common
problems with cookies, JavaScript, ... used by your browser.
What should I do if all the instructions in Möbius are
in a language other than English (the language that I want)?
There are simpler solutions to solve this issue than
learning that new language.
- We assume that you are using the latest version of you operating
system and browser.
- First of all, check the setting of your computer and your browser
to make sure that English (CA) or English (US) has
been selected as the preferred language. Möbius uses this
information to select the language used to display the
instructions.
- Sometime, it suffices to restart your browser and remove the old
cookies associated to Möbius and DigitalEd.
- If, after the previous two steps, you are still in the small
group that still get the instructions in a language other than
English, try with another browser. If everything is fine with the
second browser, then there may be a problem with your first browser.
It may be simpler to reinstall it than to try to pin point the
issue. If you still get the instructions in another language with
the second browser, then the issue is possibly with your operating
system. You should get the help of someone with a good knowledge of
the type of operating system that you are using.
- You may also use Ask the Möbi chatbot on the website
. If the Möbi chatbot cannot answer your
question, then you will have the option to forward it to the
DigitalEd support team.
They may have other suggestions to solve your problem. They may be
aware of some bugs in the version of your browser, ...
What should I do when my grades are not recorded on
BrightSpace?
You must
always access your assignments using the links in
BrightSpace.
If you fail to do so, your grades will not be recorded in
BrightSpace. You must not
navigate to the course home page on Möbius to access your
assignments. Your instructor may refuse to transfer grades from
Möbius to BrightSpace and may consider that the assignments have not
been submitted if you do not follow these instructions.
What do I do when I get an authorization error or other similar
errors?
If you get such errors, the usual solution is to remove old
cookies associated to Möbius and try again to reach the
assignment.
Where can I find the due date and instructions for an assignment
on Möbius?
The due date and rules (called policies
on Möbius) for each assignment is shown on the first page when you
select an assignment.
The period of accessibility give you the starting date and the due
date for the assignment. You cannot work on the assignment outside
this period. It is your responsibility to carefully read this
information.
On some assignments, you may be given more than one trial at the
entire assignment. That is, you may be able to submit your assignment
early, learn your grade, and request a new version of the assignment
to try to do better. The questions for the newest version of the
assignment will be slightly different than those for the previous
versions of the assignment.
Unless otherwise stated in the instructions, if more than one
attempt is allowed for an assignment, the policy is to take the
best mark of all the attempts as the grade for the assignment.
Please note that the access to the Möbius server will probably be
slower during peak times (such as a few hours before the deadline to
submit an assignment); plan ahead to avoid frustration.
How do I know if I submitted an assignment?
After submitting your assignment, you will get a message that your
data have been saved.
Any active assignment, that has not been submitted when the deadline
to submit the assignment is reached, is automatically submitted.
How do I check my grade? How do I get the solutions?
To gain access to the GradeBook on Möbius, click on the
link GradeBook in the module on BrightSpace where you can
find your assignments.
Next, request the list of all the assignments 1 and
choose the assignments 2 whose grades and solutions you
want. For the assignments selected, you may ask for the version for
which you got the highest mark or all the versions that you have
attempted 3. You may request only the versions that you
have completed 4.
When you have selected the options that you wanted, you only have
to click the Search button at the bottom of the page.
The list of all the assignments that you have requested appears in
the section View Panel at the bottom of the menu of the
figure above. To see the detailed solutions of an assignment, you
only have to click on the link Details on the right of the
title of the assignment. According to the instructor's choice, this
link may not be available before the deadline to submit the
assignment.
If you are allowed to access the detailed solutions of your
assignments, you will get a display that looks like the
following.
How did I do?
On some assignments, the how did I do? button (on the top
left corner of a question) will be enabled. When you click on it,
you are told if your answer is correct or not. There is no penalty
associated with the use of this option (in fact, you are encouraged
to use it when available). For some assignments, there may be a cap
on the number of times that you can use this option. On others, you
may use this option as many times as you want.
Can I trust the equation editor to write my answer?
There is no short answer to this questions. Some students
have reported problems with the graphic interface in the past but
there was not anyway to systematically repeat these problems. You may
get an error message like the following one when you submit your
assignment.
If you do, you should then verify the syntax for your answer.
It is recommended to use the scientific calculator notation (see
question below) when you can to avoid problems with the equation editor.
How do I write this mathematical expression?
There is no short answer to this question. We provide below
some information to get started answering questions.
Since the equation editor may not always be reliable, we strongly
suggest to use the text mode (when available) and write your answer
in scientific notation. Here are some examples.
| Expression |
Scientific Notation |
|
Expression |
Scientific Notation |
| |
5*x |
|
3∧2 |
| |
(x∧2+3*x)∧5 |
|
6∧(1/3) |
| |
5∧(1/2) or
sqrt(5) |
|
(x∧2 + 6)∧(1/2) |
| |
sqrt((x∧2)*cos(x) + 5)/(x∧(2/3)*e∧(x∧2) + ln(x+2))
|
|
|
Parentheses are very important when writing rational exponents. For
instance, x ∧ 1/2 = (x ∧ 1)/2 = x/2
instead of x ∧ (1/2)
as it is probably intended. You must write
x ∧ (1/2) to get