SAM Projects: Saving Your
School Time and Money
Steven Freund / University of Central Florida
Session Overview
 Introduction
 About SAM
 SAM @ UCF
 Time and Money Savings
 Student Performance
 Best Practices
 Contact Information
 Questions and Answers
Introduction
Steven Freund
Coordinate two high-enrollment
introductory computer courses
~5,000 students per year
Teach computer concepts, Windows
basics, and Microsoft Office
SAM plays a critical role in both courses
About SAM
 Skills Assessment Manager
 Assessment
 Training
 Projects
 Projects use auto-grading technology to provide students
with instant feedback
 Projects mirror end of chapter exercises in Shelly
Cashman, New Perspectives, and Illustrated Office 2007
books
 Capstone projects serve as a “final exam” for each Office
program
About SAM
SAM 2007 v6.0 (available this
Summer) will grade Access projects
No technical expertise required to set
up or use SAM
Great help with accreditation
SAM @ UCF
Two courses: CGS 1060 and
CGS 2100
CGS 1060
SAM used for weekly Word, PowerPoint,
and Excel assignments
SAM “exams” given at the end of
teaching each Office program
Practice “exams” help prepare students
SAM @ UCF
CGS 2100
Traditional assignments
SAM exams given at the end of teaching
each Office program
Practice exams
SAM @ UCF
CGS 1060:
http://www.cs.ucf.edu/courses/cgs1060
CGS 2100
http://www.cs.ucf.edu/courses/cgs2100
Time and Money Savings
Students receive instant feedback
and detailed reports about their
performance (and errors)
Students know exactly where they
need to improve
You immediately can adjust your
curriculum to help reinforce
concepts students are missing
Time and Money Savings
You also can adjust your curriculum
to spend less time teaching concepts
students “get.”
On average, it takes our teaching
assistants one hour to grade an
assignment for a class of 30 students
Time and Money Savings
Let’s do the math!
1 lab section has 9 SAM “activities”
each semester
1 hour per week dedicated to grading
the “activity”
$8 / hour for a teaching assistant
$8 x 9 hours per semester = $72 per 30
students
Time and Money Savings
 If our CGS 1060 class has 1,000 students
in a given semester, that saves us $2,400
 But wait… there’s more!
 That’s just for one class in one semester
 We still have two other semesters
 … and CGS 2100!
UCF ends up saving about $10,000
per year
Student Performance
We easily can track student
performance
My research has shown that students
who take the practice test (and
succeed) usually get an A on the real
test
Extremely consistent scoring
Best Practices
“Practice” and “real” tests
Pay attention to Frequency Analysis
Reports
In large classes, import your users
Make SAM Training available to your
students
Contact Information
Steven Freund
University of Central Florida
E-mail: sfreund@eecs.ucf.edu
Phone: (407) 823-4697
Questions and Answers