Sustainable Grading
Ralph Westfall, Ph.D. April 2010
http:/www.csupomona.edu/~rdwestfall/grading/sustaingrade.ppt
http:/www.csupomona.edu/~rdwestfall/grading/
What Is Sustainable Grading?
• Sustainable in terms of:
• Reducing or eliminating paper usage
• Conserving the time and energy of the person doing
the grading
• Increasing consistency, which could reduce grade
disputes
Grading Problems
• Context: computer programming and web
development classes
• Issues
•
•
•
•
•
Too many students (60 - 90 in CIS120!)
Takes too long per student
Inconsistencies in evaluations
Hard to spot cheating
Paper is inefficient, especially when using a
learning management system (Blackboard)
• killing trees
• searching content is difficult
Computer Assisted Grading
• Things that I have tried in conjunction with learning
management systems
• Multiple Word files
• Notepad files
• Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
• for sequencing grading as first-in/first out
• for recording detail and calculating scores
• Custom software I'm developing
Multiple Word Files
• Students submit all assignments into
Blackboard in zip files that include:
• individual programming code files for testing
• Word files that have pasted into them:
• all relevant code
• images (including user interfaces when running code)
• outputs
• Grade files in order submitted (sort dates in Excel)
• turn on Track Changes
• mark comments with ** to make easy to find and total
• refer back to previously graded files for consistency (can
copy comments)
Word Files Demonstration
• Ken (ASP.NET coding assignment in a Visual
Basic.NET class)
• Most of comments placed around the image of the
interface
Multiple Word: Pros and Cons
• Pluses
• Increased consistency
• Easier to spot cheating
• Can provide relatively detailed feed back and
corrections
• Can use Find to locate and help total deductions (all
marked with **)
• Minuses
• Time consuming
• High human memory demands
Notepad Files
• Paste frequently used comments into Notepad
• Including ** marker and scoring
• Paste them back into Word documents or
Blackboard feedback
Notepad Demonstration
• CIS 120 Web Development for Non-Technical
Students
• These are grading comments on term project at
end of class
Notepad File Pros and Cons
• Pros
• simple
• consistent on common issues
• Cons
•
•
•
•
Awkward
Somewhat labor intensive
Not comprehensive/not scalable
No sorting capability
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet
• Rubrics in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet
• 1st column: points off
• 2nd column: summary of grading issues
• After that, one column per student (in submission
order determined with Excel )
• Totals for each column
• Split or Freeze Panes feature allows keeping first
two columns visible while scrolling horizontally
through users
Excel Demonstration
• Dummy class
• I haven’t done this for a long time, and couldn’t find
any examples, but they’re on my computer
somewhere
Microsoft Excel Pros and Cons
• Pluses
• High consistency
• Very easy to spot cheating
• Minuses
• Feed back and corrections often must be compressed
due to limitations of width of computer screen
• Copying comments from spreadsheet into users Word file
is labor intensive
• Unwieldy to deal with more than one screen of grading
items, which is not enough in many situations
• Sorting grading comments makes them easier to use, but
takes extra effort
More Automation with Excel?
• Use Visual Basic for Applications to make the
spreadsheet easier to use
• Could reduce labor but would still be limited in
terms of comment detail
• Would require extra coding to make as fail-safe as a
database application
• Less analytical possibilities than a database
application
Stand-Alone Application
• Visual Basic plus a database
• Less coding than an Excel application would require
• Use existing database capabilities rather than adding
them to Excel's capabilities
• Add, change, delete
• More extensible
• Easier to maintain
• Labor-saving functionalities
• Automate copying of comments rather than having to
manually select and copy
• Built in sorting in combobox that holds all the comments
Demonstration of System
• Download and extract files from GradeSQL.zip
into a folder on your Desktop (or wherever)
• Double-click GradeSQL.exe file in Debug folder
• Or add a “shortcut” to file to start menu
• Use Set Up tab to load items from database
• Click item you want to use and in right
combobox and then paste it (Ctrl V) into file you
are grading
• Type new comment in left textbox and click Add
to add it to combobox and database
Future Plans
• Implement desirable enhancements identified
through use
• Registered with Source Forge as an open
source project, but hasn’t attracted a team
• A student from India expressed interest in working
with me, but didn’t follow through on this project
• Publicize it
• MERLOT
• Forums and mailing lists
• Follow up publication in an academic outlet
Conclusions
• Not where I want it to be yet
• Still awkward to use
• Might be better to type short comments manually
and just use it for long comments (how-to
instructions for students who aren’t “getting it”)
• Interface design is critical - need ability to
• Show all comments at same time to make selection
easier and also show all scoring to help make
manually typed short comments more consistent,
without taking up a lot of room on the screen?
Survey/Brainstorming
• Would you ever use something like this?
• Why/not?
• What would have to be done to this to make it
something you might consider using (ideally,
without any technical constraints?)
• Other possible, non-critical improvements?