November 2000 — Broadband

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Practical Tips for Using Web-based Assessment Systems

Computer-based homework systems are both praised and derided because they allow faculty members to be less involved with the student homework process. Proponents advocate these systems as indispensable tools for grading homework for large numbers of students. This results in time savings for the faculty member, more time on task for students and cost savings for the department that would otherwise need to pay for grading services.

Critics argue that faculty members who use such systems aren’t doing their jobs if they aren’t grading student homework, and that students focus too much on getting the “right” answer at the expense of the learning process. Although all of these arguments may have merit, Web-based assessment systems that include homework grading capabilities can be used in a number of ways to enhance the teaching and learning process.

This article highlights some of the creative ways that faculty members use WebAssign, a Web-based homework delivery, collection, grading, and recording system. The information presented here was taken from interviews with 20 faculty members at 10 institutions in six different disciplines who were part of a broader evaluation of WebAssign’s use in the university environment.

Using WebAssign, students submit answers to questions and receive feedback almost instantly. Questions can be multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, numeric, or essay and can be created by the teacher or selected from a bank of provided textbook questions. Students can submit answers as many times as their teacher allows.

Certainly the most common way teachers use the system is to deliver and grade homework problems. A major component is the availability of questions from a number of popular textbooks whose publishers have partnered with the service. However, many faculty members have moved beyond this simple application to create their own questions for a number of needs, which include teaching online courses, ensuring that students come to class prepared and encouraging participation in class activities.

 

Online Courses

A math professor at North Carolina State University began offering a completely Web-based version of his pre-calculus math course in 1997. At that time, he provided Java Script tutorials to help students learn the material, but until exam time he had no way to collect and grade student work or to determine if they understood the material. Homework was optional and only assigned for student practice. In 1998, he introduced WebAssign into his course for grading homework problems that he created. Students had weekly problem sets to complete, and feedback on their progress was available to teacher and student alike. In 2000, he began to use the system to offer tests and exams, although students were required to take the tests at a designated computer lab on campus in order to verify their identities. Because of WebAssign’s ability to randomize variables within questions, there was little concern about student’s cheating on the exams. Each student had five chances to submit his or her exam so that careless errors could be caught and eliminated before final grading.