Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!santra!cs.hut.fi!juh From: juh@cs.hut.fi (Juha Hyv|nen) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Automatic checking the students' answers Message-ID: Date: 11 Oct 90 12:06:00 GMT Sender: news@santra.uucp (Cnews - USENET news system) Distribution: comp Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 57 Vision: ------ Student Jack sends a request by e-mail to a mail server asking for question # 1. The server sends him back the following. "Show the heap after each insertion of the keys A N E X A M P L E into an initially empty heap." When student Jill requests the same question she may get e.g. the following. "Show the heap after each insertion of the keys D I F F E R E N T into an initially empty heap." The questions are generated by a "question generator" and there should be some variation between any two student's questions. When Jack has solved the problem, he sends back the answer. Now, the "answer analyzer" checks his answer and gives points to him. (Later, Jack could ask the server how he has done and possibly what was wrong with his answer.) ------ I am looking for information about what kind of questions can be checked automatically. (It should be quite easy to generate variations of the questions.) The system would be tested (and used) in a computer science course "Data structures and algorithms". The book used is Sedgewick, R., Algorithms (2nd ed). The course includes - data structures (list, stack, queue, tree, ...) - sorting methods (quicksort, heapsort, ...) - searching methods (binary search, B-trees, hashing, ...) - string processing (pattern matching, parsing, compression, cryptology, ...) - graphs (spanning trees, shortest path, ...) If you - know about a similar system, or - have heard of a similar system, or - know about suitable questions or question types, or - have suggestions about questions or question types, or - know anything else you feel is related to the subject please e-mail me or post to the net. Thank you. / (.__o .. /_/ __/ Juha Hyvonen ! / ! !/ ) ! juh@hutcs.hut.fi ------