Where is PrairieLearn?

Engineering IT hosts and supports a PrairieLearn instance on prairielearn.umd.edu.

What is PrairieLearn?

PrairieLearn is an online problem-driven learning system for creating homeworks and tests. It allows questions to be written using arbitrary HTML, JavaScript, and Python, thus enabling very powerful questions that can randomize and autograde themselves, and can access client- and server-side libraries to handle tasks such as graphical drawing, symbolic algebra, and student code compilation and execution.

Table of Contents

• Where is PrairieLearn?
• What is PrairieLearn?
• Table of Contents
• Who can access PrairieLearn?
  • Faculty, staff, and students at the University of Maryland College Park
• How do I log in to PrairieLearn?
  • University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students
• How do I join a course as a student in PrairieLearn?
• Where can I find documentation for PrairieLearn?
• As an instructor who would like to use PrairieLearn for my course, how do I get started?
• How do I assign access to TA's or others to grade/edit course content?
• All of my course content is gone, help!
• Where can I get support for PrairieLearn?
• Is there a way to sync grades in PrairieLearn to Canvas?
• Can I access the PrairieLearn API?
• What happens when I leave the University or my access expires?
• Are there limitations on use of this PrairieLearn instance?

Who can access PrairieLearn?

Faculty, staff, and students at the University of Maryland College Park

All Faculty, staff and students at the University of Maryland College Park have access to PrairieLearn automatically.

How do I log in to PrairieLearn?

University of Maryland faculty, staff, and students

Log in using the UMD CAS button on the log in page. If you have never used PrairieLearn before, your account will be created on first login.

How do I join a course as a student in PrairieLearn?

Please see this guide for instructions on enrolling in the course as a student.

Where can I find documentation for PrairieLearn?

You can find documentation here.

As an instructor who would like to use PrairieLearn for my course, how do I get started?

Please see Request a course in PrairieLearn.

How do I assign access to TA's or others to grade/edit course content?

See the Course staff section in Course configuration on PrairieLearn's documentation website.

All of my course content is gone, help!

In PrairieLearn, navigate to your course, click the Sync tab, and then click the Pull from remote git repository button. Your course content should magically reappear as if nothing happened. If this is not the case, please email pl-support@umd.edu.

Where can I get support for PrairieLearn?

Please email pl-support@umd.edu. PrairieLearn the company (support@prairielearn.com) cannot help with UMD's instance of PrairieLearn.

Is there a way to sync grades in PrairieLearn to Canvas?

While PrairieLearn natively supports LTI integration, we do not recommend instructors use it. EIT has developed a custom-code solution that we can configure on a course-by-course basis to sync grades back to Canvas. Please email pl-support@umd.edu to have this set up for your course.

Can I access the PrairieLearn API?

Yes, please see the API page on PrairieLearn's documentation website. Our API base is https://prairielearn.umd.edu/pl/api/v1.

What happens when I leave the University or my access expires?

Students
You will retain your access to PrairieLearn until your Directory ID expires, typically two semesters after graduation.

Faculty
You will retain your access to PrairieLearn as long as you have an active appointment in Workday. When your appointment in Workday ends, you will lose access to PrairieLearn.

Are there limitations on use of this PrairieLearn instance?

Our version of PrairieLearn does not contain any features available in the "Enterprise Edition" of PrairieLearn. This edition of PrairieLearn is not documented as it is part of their SaaS offering, however if you are interested in learning which features are part of the enterprise edition you can peruse the upstream PrairieLearn codebase here.