ELECTRONIC ONLINE MARKING OF SOFTWARE ASSIGNMENTS (EOMOSA)

Recently presented paper in Milan at 9th China-Europe International Symposium on Software Engineering Education.

 Electronic Online Marking Of Software Assignments (EOMOSA) 

Gary Hill and Scott Turner

Abstract

With the advent of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) and online electronic submission of assignments, computing lecturers are increasingly assessing code online. There are various tools for aiding electronic marking, grading and plagiarism detection. However, there appears to be limited shared advice to computer science tutors (and students) on the effective use of these tools.

This paper aims to stimulate peer-discussion amongst tutors involved in the assessing (marking and grading) of software code. Many United Kingdom (UK) Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are using electronic marking. This paper discusses the authors’ experience and proposes suggestions for appropriate and effective solutions to the electronic assessment of software code. This will be based on the authors’ experience of electronically assessing code over three academic years and the current advice given to their students.

KEY WORDS

Software engineering, online marking, online grading, online assessment, turnitin, computer code.

Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education Vol 4 Issue 2012

Vol 4, No 1 (2012)

Table of Contents

Editorial	PDF
Rachel Maunder, Scott Turner, Simon Sneddon, Anna Crouch	1-2

Articles

Students’ views on higher education learning environments for professional teacher education	PDF
Diane Stoncel, Ann Shelton-Mayes	3-16

Assessing the impact of students facilitating workshops within the context of a collaborative cross institution project	PDF
Grant Petrey	17-31

An action research project to explore the effect of a pre-assessment intervention with undergraduate occupational therapy students	PDF
Anita Volkert	32-43

An exploration of the motivations of service users and carers involved in student social work education and the challenges that such involvement brings	PDF
Valerie Gant	44-58

Critical case studies

Using culturally relevant case studies to enhance students’ learning: a reflective analysis of the benefits and challenges for social work students and academics	PDF
Prospera Sorviel Tedam	59-69

Work in progress

Coping with the first fail: a strategic approach to student retention	PDF
Simon Smith, Andrea Lee	70-74

Book reviews

Helping Doctoral Students Write – pedagogies for supervision	PDF
Nick Sutcliffe	75-77

ISSN: 2041-3122

The Journal Enhancing the Learner Experience in Higher Education can be found at: http://journals.northampton.ac.uk/index.php/elehe/index

Editorial Board for for the journal ITALICS

 Some rights reserved by Patrick Hoesly

Taken from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/journals/italics/italics-editorial-board

ITALICS - Innovation in Teaching And Learning in Information and Computer Sciences

Members of the Editorial Board:

• Stephen Hagan (Editor in Chief), University of Ulster
• Tom Crick, Cardiff Metropolitan University
• Neil Gordon, University of Hull
• Alan Hayes, University of Bath
• Lyndsay Marshall, Newcastle University
• Andrew McGettrick, University of Strathclyde
• Rebecca Strachan, Northumbria University
• Scott Turner, University of Northampton

Details about the journal can be found at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/journals/italics

Opinion: Curation Software to use or not to use?

Taken from: http://apslandt.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/opinion-curation-software-to-use-or-not.html



What is curation software?
The number of resources on the internet is increasing in most areas and search engines can are helpful but it is not the same as someone telling you this is a good resource. Digital curation takes this further allowing people to produce lists of internet resources that can be dynamically updated but filtered resources - if you like a dynamic reading list of web resources.

Two free example tools are shown below Scoop.it and paper.li

1. Scoopit(http://www.scoop.it)

 


Two examples sites used in my teaching are shown here:

artificial intelligence for students

Robot resource


















The good feature of scoop.its is you have control over what content you present, you are the filter. Content suggestions are also made, but it is up to you if you select them. The aim is to increase the amount of student suggested content. 



2. Paper.li (www.paper.li)

Allows you to set up a newspaper-like resource that takes feeds from blogs, rss feeds and if you want Twitter. Unlike scoop.it you have control over the feeds you choose but less control over the content displayed; so careful selection of the feeds is needed

Paper.li resource

An example of what other universities are doing in this area can be found at Curtin University.

Opinion: Microsoft Learning Content Development System

I have recently being 'playing' with Microsoft Learning Content Development System (LCDS)  a free tool from Microsoft for developing interactive on-line material. The case study was research methods for an MSc Computing course.

By no means have I looked at all the features, but there are some nice features I have looked at  like the ability to produce interactive tables only revealing a topic at a time, or the ability to embed questions inside the 'course'

It is SCORM compliant so does fit within some VLEs such as backboard fairly easily.

Problems? It does not work with Google Chrome, but is fine with Firefox and Internet Explorer (not entirely surprising). Personally I find the font size used too small, it is alright when viewed on a monitor but when it is projected it is too difficult to read.

Are there features I have missed? Yes, there are lots of features at the moment I have only used those features I want at the time and it would be worth exploring others further.

Why not using Xerte? No reason, Xerte is another option and is worth considering - i just haven't done it yet. 

Summary
LCDS is fairly intuitive, easy to use and free, but doesn't work well on all browsers and not easily customisable.

What's the problem with problem-solving?

What is the problem with problem solving? on Prezi

Recent presentation

Turner, S. and Al-Sherbaz, A. (2012) What's the problem with problem-solving? Seminar Presentation presented to: Insights into the future of learning and teaching at Northampton, University of Northampton, 3rd December 2012.

Robot behaviours

Behaviour based robots was used in the teaching as way of getting the students to think out AI a little deeper and in particular Do we need Human Level intelligence? or rather Do we always need to aim for Human Level Intelligence?


Lego mindstorms robot are a good vehicle for students to start trying out idea around behaviour-based robotics. They are inexpensive, programmable and with the LeJOS software installed on them have behaviours built into the programming which is done in Java.


A good example to use comes from Bagnall's book (B Bagnall (2002) Core Lego Mindstorms: 

Programming the RCX in Java , ISBN: 978-0130093646)

code 1: HitWall

//Taken from Bagnall (2002)
import josx.robotics.*;
import josx.platform.rcx.*;
public class HitWall implements Behavior
{
public boolean takeControl()
{
return Sensor.S2.readBooleanValue();
}
public void suppress()
{
Motor.A.stop();
Motor.C.stop();
}
public void action()
{
Motor.A.backward();
Motor.C.backward();
try{Thread.sleep(1000);}catch(Exception e){}
Motor.A.stop();
try{Thread.sleep(300);}catch(Exception e){}
Motor.C.stop();
}
}

Code 2: DriveForward

//Taken from Bagnall (2002)


import josx.robotics.*;
import josx.platform.rcx.*;
public class DriveForward implements Behavior
{
public boolean takeControl()
{
return true;
}
public void suppress()
{
Motor.A.stop();
Motor.C.stop();
}
public void action()
{
Motor.A.forward();
Motor.C.forward();
}
}



Code 3: Bumper Car

import josx.robotics.*;
public class BumperCar
{
public static void main(String [] args)
{
Behavior b1=new DriveForward();
Behavior b2=new HitWall();
Behavior [] bArray ={b1,b2};
Arbitrator arby=new Arbitrator(bArray);
arby.start();
}
}