Course Portals and Automated Problem System

Course Portals and Automated Problem System

Grant:
Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching
Academic Year:
2012 - 2013 (June 1, 2012 through May 31, 2013)
Funding Requested:
$10,000.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
shiyy
gessl
don
Overview of the Project:
The objective of this project is to develop a set of elearning technologies that are scalable and extensible, together with two integrated applications of those technologies: Course Portals and Automated Assessment System. The initial focus will be on undergraduate computer science courses, for which there is still much room and a great need for developing such technologies. The design seeks to maximize adoptability, through easy-to-use interfaces and building blocks that are easy to customize and extend. The technologies are expected to be scalable to many other courses, with the benefit of substantial financial savings and significant improvement in instruction quality. Some preliminary work has been done through the KnoAtom Project (KnoAtom.eecs.umich.edu) led by the Director.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

To develop an e-learning website that has two core features: (a) a web "portal" for instruction materials that are organized by a fine-grained division of knowledge and powered by user contributions and ratings; (b) an assessment tool with an easy to use interface for creating automated problems. At Stage I, the focus was on implementing the basic system. Longer term objectives include testing in a small number of courses, then scaling it up for large number of courses and users, and adding advanced features.

Project Achievements:

Most basic features have implemented. It is located at CPortals.eecs.umich.edu. It took over 1000 student coder time and months of intensive work. It is being tested, debugged, and experimented for EECS 376 Fall 2013. The impact is just starting to materialize. Further funding is required for measuring, improving, and scaling up the system.

Continuation:
Yes. Two student coders work on the project through independent studies. An additional paid student coder is partly funded by the CSE Division, which has pledged some bridging fund for the overrun of Stage I funding and before Stage II funding becomes available. The CSE division provides all the computational resources required thus no material cost is incurred to the project. The investment of the CSE Division reflects the value it sees in the project.
Dissemination:
Currently the system is at the testing stage thus is not widely advertised. More resources are required for completing the testing, debugging, adding more advanced features. Those are works to be done for Stage II. During or after Stage II, we will advertise the system widely and we expect adoption by many colleagues as we strongly believe in its value.
Advice to your Colleagues:
Developing a large software systems requires a significant amount of resources, both coding labor and hardware. Leveraging departmental support would reduce the cost on hardware (CSE provides all computational resources for our project). Using student coders taking independent studies would reduce labor cost. But still, expect high expense for paid coders, especially at their initial stage of learning the necessary tools.
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