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> Turnaround time for exams was sub-one-day. What's the current status on accurately grading mistakes? From the exams I remember (Fall 2015), the exams autogra

> Turnaround time for exams was sub-one-day. What's the current status on accurately grading mistakes? From the exams I remember (Fall 2015), the exams autograded perfect answers well, but gave similar marks to nearly correct, but still wrong answers as complete gibberish. I felt that unless I had the answers exactly correct, it was hard to demonstrate my knowledge of the topic.

Shoop 8y ago
Now there is a regrade system that lets you ask for more partial credit if you feel that the autograder was too harsh. That being said, its still relatively easy to get a lot of points off for a small mistake :(. You definitely have to be really careful during 213 exams but thankfully there's plenty of time to redo all the questions 2 or 3 times.
- josephg 8y ago
  At UNSW we had a similar system. The marking was a test suite, and each passing test would give you a portion of your grade. The system had a couple of simple smoke tests which were ran on submission time (to catch issues that would make the entire test run fail erroneously). As a TA I spent a fair bit of time fixing trivial issues - eg, sometimes a student would get 3/10 on the auto marker with a basically working solution because of a typo or something. I would dock a mark, fix the bug and rerun the tests - leaving the student with 8/10 or something.
  - Cogito 8y ago
    When did you TA? I was TA for 1911 (I think?) around 2008-2009 and don't recall any automated grading system. It would have been so nice too, as labs would end up with students trying (struggling!) to complete the lab, get the lab graded, and ask questions about lecture material they hadn't yet understood. The grading would inevitably take up almost all the lab...
    - josephg 7y ago
      I was a TA around 2004-2005. (I started in 2003 and graduated in 2007). We didn't have automated grading for the labs then either, but we did for all the assignments. Still manual marking on style though, which to this day I have complex feelings about.
      - Cogito 7y ago
        Ok, I think it was fairly similar then. Assignments were graded automatically (based on passing test suites essentially) but individual labs hadn't been set up the same way. With style I always felt it was easy to say if it was bad or good, but hard to justify sometimes; 'good style' often just means 'I can follow this easily as I read it' and that becomes subjective based on how you like to read code. Even so, it was always obvious when a student had spent time on their program, and gone back over the code to rewrite or clean it up - those tended to get the good style marks.
Fiahil 8y ago
When I was studying software engineering, "nearly correct" answers would get you the same grade as "complete gibberish" on purpose. Partially correct programs would have no more value than completely incorrect ones. In retrospect, I think it was crucially important for students to learn the price of their mistakes. Most of my previous classmates are reputable engineers now.
- rcxdude 8y ago
  I think this is only fair if the exam takes place under similar circumstances to actual engineering (which is rarely the case).

Shoop 8y ago

Now there is a regrade system that lets you ask for more partial credit if you feel that the autograder was too harsh. That being said, its still relatively easy to get a lot of points off for a small mistake :(. You definitely have to be really careful during 213 exams but thankfully there's plenty of time to redo all the questions 2 or 3 times.

josephg 8y ago
At UNSW we had a similar system. The marking was a test suite, and each passing test would give you a portion of your grade. The system had a couple of simple smoke tests which were ran on submission time (to catch issues that would make the entire test run fail erroneously). As a TA I spent a fair bit of time fixing trivial issues - eg, sometimes a student would get 3/10 on the auto marker with a basically working solution because of a typo or something. I would dock a mark, fix the bug and rerun the tests - leaving the student with 8/10 or something.
- Cogito 8y ago
  When did you TA? I was TA for 1911 (I think?) around 2008-2009 and don't recall any automated grading system. It would have been so nice too, as labs would end up with students trying (struggling!) to complete the lab, get the lab graded, and ask questions about lecture material they hadn't yet understood. The grading would inevitably take up almost all the lab...
  - josephg 7y ago
    I was a TA around 2004-2005. (I started in 2003 and graduated in 2007). We didn't have automated grading for the labs then either, but we did for all the assignments. Still manual marking on style though, which to this day I have complex feelings about.
    - Cogito 7y ago
      Ok, I think it was fairly similar then. Assignments were graded automatically (based on passing test suites essentially) but individual labs hadn't been set up the same way. With style I always felt it was easy to say if it was bad or good, but hard to justify sometimes; 'good style' often just means 'I can follow this easily as I read it' and that becomes subjective based on how you like to read code. Even so, it was always obvious when a student had spent time on their program, and gone back over the code to rewrite or clean it up - those tended to get the good style marks.

Fiahil 8y ago

When I was studying software engineering, "nearly correct" answers would get you the same grade as "complete gibberish" on purpose. Partially correct programs would have no more value than completely incorrect ones. In retrospect, I think it was crucially important for students to learn the price of their mistakes. Most of my previous classmates are reputable engineers now.

rcxdude 8y ago
I think this is only fair if the exam takes place under similar circumstances to actual engineering (which is rarely the case).