Steps in preparing a LabPro/LoggerPro experiment for student use

 

Overview

• The student computer web browser favorites are shortcuts setup to run a LoggerPro experiment file.  
• LoggerPro experiment files have an extension .mdb that is associated with the Logger Pro software.
• The shortcut specifies a startup directory to run in.
• Student favorites in the Physics Lab are downloaded from the network each time a student logs onto the network.
• Web links to software will not run because of security (but Windows shortcuts will run)

 

Procedure

1. Go to the Physics network directory. Note, do not use the drive mappings but the actual route
•  On Win200 the server path is found as
  “My Network Places/Entire Network/NetWare Services/NetWare Servers/Ares”
• The Physics directory is “\\Ares\APPS\Apps\Pasc\Phys”
2. Find an experiment similar to what is intended and copy it to the experiment folder used by students (under the course specific directory).
• original Vernier experiments are under “Logger Pro (2.2)\Experiments”
• student experiments folder is course specific, similar to “Lab114\LoggerPro\Experiments”
3. Create a shortcut in the “Phys\Favorites” directory to the experiment file (by copy and then “shortcut paste”). Every entry in the favorites directory will appear on the student computers (the favorites directory is copied to the student computer during their login).
4. Edit the shortcut properties so the "Start in:" directory in one directory level below the experiments directory. The Logger Pro software on student computers has been setup to look for files in  “.\Experiments” and in “.\Calibrations” (set by “Starup.mdb” file in the LoggerPro startup directory).
5. The experiment file is edited by running it under an instructor network id that has rights to that directory. All changes will appear when students run the experiment. Students are not able to save any changes or their data.
6. Test running the shortcut from favorites on a student Physics lab computer. The shortcut should
• Run LoggerPro based on the file association on the local student computer.
• Load the experiment .mdb file
• LoggerPro will base file operations on the shortcut startup directory