Development and evaluation of a computer program to assess student CAD models

Abstract

This paper presents a computer program that can automatically assess the geometry and changeability of student solid models. The program is launched from within the CAD software package and a graphical user interface is presented so that the user has the opportunity to set values for twelve different deduction categories. The program compares one or more student model files to a single "gold standard" model. The program allows for the assessment to be thorough, repeatable, non-subjective, and very fast. It can process 20 or more models per minute and generates output very similar to what would've been generated by hand. The program has been used to re-grade exams from the Spring 2015 semester; when computer-graded scores were compared to instructor-graded scores, a strong correlation was observed between the two scoring systems.