Supporting on-line direct markup and evaluation of students' projects

Abstract

Automated grading systems have been in use for several years. These systems automate part of the grading process by compiling, executing and testing student submitted source code. However, such systems often fail to include a mechanism to allow instructors or grader to provide free form comments on student work. One must resort to other methods to provide feedback to students. This paper presents the development of a feedback mechanism that streamlines the grading process for instructors and teaching assistants. A web-based grading tool has been developed that allows course staff to enter comments for student programs directly through a web browser. This tool is tightly integrated with Web-CAT, an automated grader. The result is a one-stop web-based interface for students to receive all of their feedback. We present the results of an anonymous survey of computer science professors from different universities on their expectations with respect to TA grading activities for programming assignments, as well as the learning outcomes these professors desire for their students. In addition, we present the results of interviews with teaching assistants in introductory programming level courses to learn about the different grading methods they use when grading programming assignments. Finally, we report on a usability evaluation of the tool itself and discuss directions for future work.