Gradeer: An Open-Source Modular Hybrid Grader
This is an incremental improvement for tutors in educational settings, combining automated and manual assessment to simplify grading processes.
The authors tackled the problem of automating student program assessment while retaining manual grading benefits by introducing Gradeer, a modular hybrid tool that assists tutors with automated code inspection and program execution, and found it offered several benefits when used in an introductory Java course.
Automated assessment has been shown to greatly simplify the process of assessing students' programs. However, manual assessment still offers benefits to both students and tutors. We introduce Gradeer, a hybrid assessment tool, which allows tutors to leverage the advantages of both automated and manual assessment. The tool features a modular design, allowing new grading functionality to be added. Gradeer directly assists manual grading, by automatically loading code inspectors, running students' programs, and allowing grading to be stopped and resumed in place at a later time. We used Gradeer to assess an end of year assignment for an introductory Java programming course, and found that its hybrid approach offers several benefits.