CompuScholar's courses include several different types of online assignments. Students can code and submit programs through a web browser for auto-grading as well as complete other types of online work. Let's review each type of assignment!
ONLINE, FREE-FORM Q&A
Some courses, most notably Digital Savvy, include chapter activities as a series of questions and short-response answers. To enter answers and submit online, students simply click on the activity link within the course. After answering each question, students will click the "Submit" button to send responses to the teacher for grading.
Teachers will access student responses by clicking on the same activity link. They will see a list of students with submitted work and will click on the icon next to each submission to view one student's answers. Teachers can use a slider control to rate each answer from 0 through 5.
The overall activity grade from 0 to 100% is automatically calculated based on the number of questions and the slider setting for each question. Teachers can also directly enter any numeric value before saving the grade.
ONLINE, DRAG-N-DROP SEQUENCE
Students may also encounter "drag-n-drop" problems that ask them to arrange answers in the correct sequence. These problems are useful for vocabulary matching, program-flow verification, and similar challenges. Drag-n-drop problems are auto-graded by our system, so teachers don't need to do anything here!
ONLINE CODING ASSIGNMENTS
The majority of chapter activities in our Computer Science Foundations, Python Programming, C# Programming, and Java Programming courses are online coding assignments. Students can write and test code directly in a web browser with no local software installation!
Upon submission, our auto-grading engine will examine the student code and run the program one or more times to observe the output. The activity grade is determined by a series of test cases specified in the activity instructions. Both students and teachers can review the automated test case results.
Teachers have final authority over all course grades and can always override the results of any test case or enter any desired numeric grade.
LOOKING AHEAD
Over time, we may create new types of online problems or add additional online assignments to existing courses. If we create new courses, those new courses will take advantage of our online assignment options wherever possible. If you have ideas for new types of online challenges, let us know!
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Check out our October 2022 Professional Development Webinar - "Working with Online and Auto-Graded Projects" - for further discussion and a video tour of the online assignments. As always, please Contact Us if you have questions!