Frequently asked questions
What is the "hint of the day"?
In case of any questions or uncertainties, please consult first the "hint of the day" (bottom right of strting web page) and check if you find a hint there already. In case this does not clarify your question, please send us your question via the contact before before submitting your anser. In case we receive several questions about a particular aspect of the experiment of the day, we post a hint or comment in the "hint of the day" so that everybody can read it and profit from it.
Can I unsubscribe from the PiA-newsletter?
Yes, of course, you can unsubscribe from the newsletter mailing list anytime. Just send and email with subject or body "UNSUBscribe" to physik_im_advent-request@gwdg.de
Can I re-use my PiA-account from last year?
No, unfortunately this is not possible. According to our data protection and privacy rules, we delete all account data end of January next year. Therefore, we would like to ask all participants to register again. You can use the same username and entries from last year, though.
Can I win any prize, if I have one or more answers not correct?
Yes, this is no problem. In case you might not submit any answer or not the correct answer, one of your three jokers jumps in automatically. So you still get those points and have all chances.
In addition, we draw special prizes for the advent weekends. We add the points from your Saturday and Sunday answers and draw prizes among the best participants (with two points for a weekend). It pays off!
My students (or their parents) have reservations against entering their personal data, so that many students were not allows to register. Is it really necessary to collect all those data for this project? An email address should be enough.
Yes, exactly. We certainly agree. The question and answer videos are or will be all available viao youtube and are (at least in Germany, Austria and Switzerland) freely available without any restictions. In order to participate in the PiA-calendar and receive in the end a certificate for download and printout, you only need an arbitrary username, an arbritrary (but safe) password and a working email address (for example in order to administer your account in case of a lost password). That is it!
In order to be able to win prizes. you also need to enter a postal address. Otherwise we cannot send you the prize ;) According to your data protection and privacy rules, we delete all account data at the end of next January. The German Physical Society (DPG) and Georg-August-University of Goettingen are non-profit organisations and do not use the data for any commercial purposes. As described on our web page "what happens to my data", no data will be passed on to third parties. Nevertheless, it is of course up to the parents decision to given children and teenager their permission to participate in this education project.
How do I register an individual person?
At http://www.physik-im-advent.de top right you find the button "Login" and thereafter "New with Physics in Advent 2015". Here you can create an account for individuals such as students, adults or others.
I am a student. How can I participate in the school class competition?
First you need to register individually as student. You can the login with your account data and go to "My Physics in Advent". Under "Modify account details" you can add your school class code which you get from your teacher. We use this to add all answers from your school class for the class evaluation. School classes get registered by the teachers. As soon as you have registered individually, you can submit your answers. You can enter your school class code also later in December during the PiA-project.
I am a teacher. How do I register a school class?
At http://www.physik-im-advent.de top right you find the button "Login" and thereafter "New with Physics in Advent 2015". Here you can create an account for teachers. All your students need to register individually. As teacher, you can create one or more classes under your account. For each school class, you obtain a separate class code, which you please pass on to your students. The students need to enter those class codes in their account data. Their daily answers will then not only be counted for the individual, but also for the school class evaluation. As teachers choose (or create if not existent already) a school when creating a teachers account, your school class will also be counted for the total school competition.
How exactly do I sign-up a school class as teacher?
If you login as teacher, go to "My Physics in Advent" and then "Modify account details". At the bottom of this page, you can enter new school classes. Every class obtains a unique class code. Please pass this on to the respective students. They need to register individually and enter their class code in their account details. This way, the students in your class get affiliated with the class and their answers count for the class.
I am a regular adult. Can I actually participate or only watch the movies?
Yes, you can! In case you might only want to watch the movies, you can do that every day on our main web page www.physik-im-advent.de without any registration. You can also register as "adult/other". This way you can submit your answer every day which gets evaluated by us and you get to see your total score. After Christmas, you can download and print your personal certificate with your score. The only difference is that you cannot win any of our prizes. However, we know that groups of adults create their own group, which is now also supported in the PiA-registration. Simply name one of your friends to be your team leader. Everybody pays some money into your local PiA-cash box. You and your friends do the experiments and submit your answers. After Christmas, we evaluate your answers and provide your team leader with some ranking (no points are shown so that it is less embarassing ;) ). You can then distribute your own prizes accordingly. Extensions and alternatives to this system are of course possible ...
How can a teacher register more then one class?
Sie können mehrere Klassen eintragen, in dem Sie sich als Lehrkraft ein Konto anlegen. Dann können Sie unter "Mein Physik im Advent" und "Kontodaten bearbeiten" die Klassencodes für mehrere Klassen anlegen und verwalten. Jede Klasse bekommt dabei einen eigenen, eindeutigen Klassencode. Bitte geben Sie diese Codes an Ihre Schülerinnen und Schüler weiter. Diese müssen sich persönlich anmelden und dann unter "Mein Physik im Advent" und "Kontodaten bearbeiten" diesen Klassencode eingeben, um sich Ihrer Klasse zuzuordnen.
I am a teacher and have registered out school. I would now like to hand over the responsibility for entering the number of classes and teachers to the PiA-team leader in our school. What shall I do?
Please login and click on "My Physics in Advent" and there "Modify account details". In case you "own" the data of your school (because you entered it) you see below the school address a field "email address if PiA team leader" Please enter the email address of the PiA-team leader of your school. You can then click on the button "generate school code".
A school code gets generated and sent to the specified email address. Now the PiA-team leader of your school receives the code via email and can enter it on the account web page as "school registration code" and the click "save/submit". In case the entered information is correct, the PiA-team leader of your school now owns the school data and can enter or modify it, for example the number of classes or teachers.
Please note that any teacher can become PiA-team leader of a school. It does not have to be the director of the school. It is onpy important that the PiA-team leader enters the address and statistical data of your school.
Where and how can I enter the class code in order to join my school class?
Please login, go to "My Physics in Advent" and then to "Modify account details". You can then enter the class code below "class and school data" and will be affiliated with you school class. In case you signed-up for the wrong class by mistake, you can remove the class code again and hence terminate the affiliation with this class. In case of problems with the class code, your teacher can generate a new code. Students who were affiliated with the class before, remain affiliated. Students who want to get affiliated with a class, all need to use the new code for that. You can enter the class code also later in December.
I have registered my class and received a class code, but no username for the class. Is that correct?
Yes, this is correct. When you register a school class, you "only" get a class code, no username. Please pass on this class code to your students. They need to register individually and enter the class code in their account details. They will then be affiliated with their school class. In your teacher's account you can see which students are affiliated with your class. In case somebody might have by mistake joined your class, you can remove them from it in your account details.
When students register with a class code, do they automatically participate in the competition for individual prizes and for school class prizes, i.e. in two categories, or do they need to register twice?
Students register individually and participate automatically in the individual prize competition. When they also enter their school class code in their account details, they also participate in the school class and the school competition in addition . The chances to win increase by entering the school class code.
Can I pass on the school class code to my students later?
Yes, the students can enter their school class code in their account details throught the advent time in December. It is most important that they register individually first and participate by submitting answers from 1st December onwards. They can affiliate with a class later. In case of problems with the class code, you can re-create a new one from your account and pass this one on to the students.
Can teachers see my answers once I am affiliated with a school class?
No. Teachers can only see which students have entered the school class code and are hence affiliated with the class. So they see if somebody is missing who wanted to affiliate with the class. In case somebody got affiliated with a class by mistake, the teacher can remove that person. The respective participant gets informed about it via email and can then obtain the correct school class code from his/her teacher. Teachers cannot see if a student has submitted an answer or which answer it was. We do this on purpose as this project is supposed to be fun, no pressure. Our data protection and privacy rules are strict here. In case you want your teachers to see how well you did, you can print your certificate after Christmas and show it to them. This way they can consider it in their grading.
Why do you register students individually rather than letting the teacher administer them ?
Our data protection and privacy rules do not allow teacher to see the results of individualy students. Also, in the process of registration they need to confirm that their parents agree to their registration. Furthermore, the project "PiA - Physics in Advent" is supposed to fun and no pressure. Teacher's administration of student accounts would disagree with this spirit as we want them to have fun with physics without any pressure. "PiA - Physics in Advent" is not part of any regular teaching at school. In case students want teachers to know their results for example in order for it to be considered in their grading, they can download and print their certificate and pass it on to their teachers.
I have forgotten my password and the generation of a new one does not seem to work.
In case you have forgotton your password, you can generate a new one yourself. From the starting web page click on "login" and then "password forgotten". You now get asked to enter the check sum (result of a little math exercise), your username and your email address. You will then receive an email with a confirmation link. If you click this link, you will receive a second email with a new password. You can now login and change your password yourself.
What happens if I submit an incorrect answer?
You have three jokers, which jump in automatically if you hapen to submit no or an incorrect answer. So you get those points as well. Only after three incorrect answers you start missing points. In the end we sum up all points. So it is no problem.