Logging In

To access exercises and other materials on Hotpotatoes.Net, you must first log in via the home page (http://www.hotpotatoes.net) to the Student area, using the name and password allocated to you by your Teacher. Enter your name and password in the boxes, making sure that you type them exactly, with the right capital and lower-case letters, then click the Log In button.

Once you have successfully logged in, you will see your own home page with options for choosing Exercises, Results, Settings or Logging Out.

Exercises

This section displays a list of the exercises which your teacher has uploaded for you to complete. See Choosing an Exercise for details.

Results

When you have completed one or more exercises, you can see your results in the Results area. See Viewing Results.

Settings

Your account settings include your email address and your password. You can change either of these by choosing the Settings option from your home page.

Logging Out

When you have finished a session of using hotpotatoes.net, it is important for security reasons that you log out using the Log Out option, especially if you use a shared computer in a college lab or workshop. If you do not log out, anyone who sits down at the computer you were using during the next couple of hours may be able to access the hotpotatoes.net system using your ID, and gain access to your user area.

Login Problems and Cookies

The login system used by hotpotatoes.net is designed to be secure - it never transmits your password unencrypted across the internet, but uses the encrypted "https" protocol to send your login information to the server. For this system to work properly, your computer's web browser must be configured to accept cookies.

Almost all browsers do accept cookies by default, but it is possible to change this setting to higher security options which prevent cookies being sent from one server to another. If you or someone else (for example a workshop IT supervisor) configures your computer's browser in this way, you may find that the hotpotatoes.net secure login will not work.

There are two solutions to this problem - you can either reconfigure your browser to accept all cookies, or you can use the cookie-free login page. We recommend that if possible, you reconfigure your browser so that you can use the secure login route.