Improving on-line assessment

Abstract

We are in the process of developing an on-line marking system for use in our large-scale CS1 and CS2 courses. To better accommodate the needs of our numerous raters, we investigated their current methodologies in marking students' work; this paper presents our findings from recording "think out loud" marking sessions and surveys. A prototype for an on-line assessment software tool is described; this tool allows markers to view students' work at various degrees of detail ranging from complete, low-level to "meta-level." We believe such a system is beneficial for improving the marking process in large-scale and distance classes.