I’m delighted to announce that a new, additional version of the 2nd edition of Active Calculus Single Variable is now publicly available on Runestone: Active Calculus with Doenet. The only differences are found in the preview activities and exercises; all of the rest of the text is identical.
For a long time, I’ve thought that the current interactive exercises in WeBWorK didn’t quite fit the text. I’m excited to now have a full set of exercises (with better graphical interactivity and automated answer-checking and feedback) that genuinely fit the notation, tone, and style of ACS.
This new version is the result of many contributors: initial drafts of many of the preview activities were created with a small group of participants during week-long workshops at the University of Minnesota in 2023 and 2024. During my Fall 2025 sabbatical, I revisited these drafts and edited them extensively, plus wrote several entirely new preview activities. In addition, I wrote or edited over 300 new exercises.
Highlights from the new version
Here are a few sample exercises to explore and see some of the great features the new version offers:
Exercise 1.8.5.2: Using a tangent line to approximate g when given a graph for g’
Exercise 3.6.4.2: Optimizing the volume of a rectangular storage container
Exercise 5.3.6.1: Practicing the structure of u-substitution with trig functions
Exercise 7.3.5.2: Applying Euler’s Method to a differential equation involving both t and y
Exercise 8.4.5.1: Finding the Taylor series of a rational function
Here are two examples of preview activities that especially leverage Doenet’s capabilities:
Preview Activity 4.3.1 (using a built-in Riemann sum calculator)
Preview Activity 7.3.1 (Euler’s Method introduction)
Using the New Version
You can read and engage with Active Calculus with Doenet by following the link. It is also possible to create a Runestone account and a corresponding course that uses the text, and then assign and track student work on the previews and exercises, all for free. One key advantage of the Runestone platform is that students see the text and the interactive previews and exercises as fully integrated: all of the students’ work is saved in the text itself. Both the previously-posted version (with WeBWorK) and the new version (with Doenet) of Active Calculus can be used on Runestone with student work tracked and graded.
Chrissy Safranski piloted the Doenet version on Runestone in both Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 during the spring semester of 2026. Nearly all of the previews and exercises have thus been classroom tested with students, and Chrissy and I did extensive additional editorial work in the spring and summer of 2026 in response to student feedback and her experience as an instructor.
Long-term plans
I expect to eventually have the new Doenet version be the source for PDF and print, but that likely won’t happen for another year or two. The current WeBWorK-based version of ACS2E will exist in perpetuity, even once the Doenet version becomes primary. For 2026-27, the Doenet version is only available in HTML.
If you want to join other instructors in using the new version on Runestone
At least 6 instructors have shared with me that they are planning to use AC with Doenet on Runestone for Calculus 1 or 2 this fall. If you are interested in doing so yourself and would like to be part of a small group with which to collaborate, please email me: boelkinm.gvsu@gmail.com, with “AC with Doenet and Runestone” in the subject line. I’ll connect the instructors accordingly, and Chrissy and I will be part of the group ourselves.
Note well: the Doenet version is still a work in progress. There will be some bugs; hopefully they’ll be minor, but regardless we will be prompt and responsive to issues that arise. Also, as noted above, the Doenet version is only available in HTML: the preview activities and exercises are different from the current posted PDF and print versions of the text.
Thanks
There are many people to thank for their contributions that made this new version of the text possible, including:
- Duane Nykamp, Doenet founder
- Virginia Mae, Doenet tech support
- Many participants at the 2023 and 2024 Doenet workshops, and especially Hannah Burson
- Brad Miller, Runestone founder
- Rob Beezer, PreTeXt founder
- Oscar Levin, PreTeXt developer
- Chrissy Safranski, co-author
- GVSU, for sabbatical support
I’m excited for this additional resource to be available to instructors and their students and I look forward to continued development that will make ACS an even better product.
More about Doenet
Founded by Duane Nykamp of the University of Minnesota, Doenet (the Distributed Open Education Network) is an NSF-supported free, open-source platform that enables authors and instructors to create, share, and deliver richly interactive mathematics activities and exercises that provide extensive feedback to students. Among its many strengths, Doenet supports easy answer-checking of mathematical expressions, text, and even interactive graphics. In addition, through drop-down menus it’s straightforward to create sentences with multiple fill-in-the blank options that help students provide structured reasons and explanations. Authors can provide content that’s responsive to what students enter, including conditional feedback. Doenet interactives can be embedded in any PreTeXt book, and student interactions with content can be tracked in the Runestone learning platform.
