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Getting Started

FOR STUDENTS

As a participant in the market, you will receive an email from the instructor who creates market and a period for trading activities. The email informs you username and password that are randomly assigned to you for the first log-in. Before really starting the trading activities, you may find the following preparation steps useful to benefit your using of NutrientNet and get good results in trading.

Login

When you first login NutrientNet, just use the username and password you receive via email. After a login, you will be taken to My Profile page as described in next step.

My Profile

At this page you will find your personal information. Then, you may want to change your username, password, or complete other personal information. You finish this step by a click to submit the changes.

My NutrientNet

After submitting the updates on personal information, you should go to the page My NutrientNet. On this page you will find the current balances on your accounts including: loading in pounds, credits, and cash. Also from this page, you can find a link Details to go to a page containing the characteristics of the source (point source or nonpoint source) assigned to you.

Source Summary - To Prepare for Trading

On this page, you will find information on your source assigned to you, including limits on pollution discharge and initial credits. Also on this page, you can do many trials to determine the best choice of water treatment practice (if point source) or best management practice (BMP, if nonpoint source). Finally, you need to make decision on which practice you will commit to reduce pollution.

Trading Process

After all, you will join in the trading process. In NutrientNet, three activities are available for participants to trade: placing offer (to sell/buy), bargaining (quantity, price), and accepting the offer. All activities can be carried out on the page Market combined with email communication for bargaining process. With those utilities available at hand, you should be able to make use of them to acquire as much benefit as possible for your budget!

For more information: Student's Guide

For a more detailed presentation on the steps to go through NutrientNet, you should read Student's Guide in Powerpoint Presentation that is available on the Teaching Tools page. Further, to have a background on market based policy to address water quality problems, you should read A Guide to Market-Based Approaches to Water Quality , also available on the Teaching Tools page.

FOR INSTRUCTORS

Step-by-step guide for instructors (pdf)

Instructors can easily create a market for your students, assign quizzes to your class, monitor student participation and performance, and assist students with the use of the site. To set up a class, all you need is a list of e-mail addresses for each student. The site has been designed so that each step is self explanatory with ample online guidance. However, if you ever have any questions, comments or concerns, contact us by clicking on the Send feedback icon on each page.

For a powerpoint presentation outlining the use of NutrientNet click here.

Exploring NutrientNet

Before giving your class an assignment, you may want to give NutrientNet a test drive. Two dummy accounts have been created for precisely this purpose. To view a sample role for a waste water treatment plant, a point source, use the username "ps" and password "ps". To try out a farmer's role, a nonpoint source, you can use "nps".

Starting Out

Follow the Instructor sign-up link from the main page of http://edu.NutrientNet.org. After completing the requested information, you will be taken to a page asking you to log in again, and then create a market. There is a known bug which sometimes makes it impossible for instructors to create an account using browsers other than Internet Explorer. If you have difficulty with logging in, please try again using Internet Explorer then send feedback if the error persists.

Creating a Market

A market is a set of individuals identified by unique e-mail addresses. To create a market, therefore, you simply need to enter an e-mail address for each student that you want included in the market. Although you can change an e-mail address once it has been added to a market, you cannot add more participants, so make sure your list is complete. If an instructor wants to participate in a market, they must create a dummy address, e.g. dummyAddress1@MyUniversity.edu. It is possible to late change the account so that account to redirect it to your own e-mail address.

Creating a trading session

A market consists of a group of individuals. You now must define what these students must do. They can trade for a number of sessions. To set up a new trading period, click on the View period list icon. First set the starting and ending times. The scenario determines how roles will be determined. If you choose A_1 two sessions in a row, everyone will play the same role twice. If you choose A_1 in the first session and A_2 in the second session then the same roles will be distributed to different people. You also must set a fine level. For example, a fine of $0 would mean that there is no penalty for being out of compliance at the end of the period. Finally, set the trading ratio, which is the number of credits obtained for each pound of non-point source load reduction. For example, a ratio of 0.5 is a 1:2 trading ratio. Markets are set up to have pretty reasonable market-clearing prices at the default trading ratio of 0.5.

Using Quizzes

From the Admin Home page, you can create quizzes for your class by clicking on the icon. A quiz can be graded or not. A non-graded quiz can be required, but forces students to figure out the correct answers before they can continue. You can also create your own quizzes.

Analyzing and evaluating

You can evaluate the performance of the market as a whole by clicking on the View period list icon. Graphs and summary statistics, as well as activity by each student in a market can be seen. More detailed statistics on performance in the market can be downloaded into an excel spreadsheet from the Data Extraction entry on the main menu.

Helping your Students

Inevitably, students will have difficulty with the site. There are several tools available to you from the users list found by clicking on the View participant list icon from Admin Home. You can "impersonate" any student's role by clicking on the View participant list and you can send a student his or her username and password by simply clicking on the Re-send username and password icon. Finally, you can send a message to all students in the market by clicking on the Re-send username and password icon from Admin Home.