Affordances offered by e-assessment tools > Free-form student input

Question 42
How can we automate the assessment of work traditionally done using paper and pen?

• Niclas Larson

This is an overarching question, with a number of specific sub-parts. It also rather presumes that the goal of CAA is to replicate traditional processes online!

What motivates this question?

The motivation for this question is fundamentally conservative, i.e. a desire to replicate online traditional work. Some previous work has considered the extent to which this is possible with existing e-assessment tools, e.g. Sangwin & Kocher (2016).

Sub parts of this question include the following:

1. Entering mathematical writing, and diagrams, into a machine. While this could be a simple photograph upload, we interpret this question as seeking to do rather more than this, specifically that the machine will interpret students’ work and interpret the student’s intended meaning.
2. Actually perform an assessment, such as seeking to establish objective criteria.
3. On the basis of criteria established, provide outcomes such as feedback, a numerical score, and notes for statistical purposes.

What might an answer look like?

We anticipate, in the near future, that this question is best addressed through generating more specific sub-questions.

Related questions

• Q47: How can we assess open-ended tasks using e-assessment?
• Q39: What methods are available for student input of mathematics?
• Q41: Are there differences in performance on mathematics problems presented on paper versus as e-assessments?
• Q43: How can we emulate human marking of students’ working such as follow-on marking and partially correct marking?

References

Sangwin, C. J., & Köcher, N. (2016). Automation of mathematics examinations. Computers & Education, 94, 215–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COMPEDU.2015.11.014