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Resources for Programming Course TA?
cndrr asks: "I'm a Teacher's Assistant for intro to Java at my university again this fall. The last time I taught, all the TAs had students turn in their assignments through email. I'm thinking about scripting a site that will let students turn in their programs automatically and in some cases, run the program and (based on the output) automatically grade it. Has anyone else TAed and found a good solution that they would recommend?"
"I'm thinking about scripting a site that will let students turn in their programs automatically and in some cases, run the program and (based on the output) automatically grade it. "
Grade what? If they can automate it, then you're out of a job.
We had a T.A. automatically grade assignments at the school where I worked. He wrote an automatic scanner to count the number of words in the comments, and to automatically run the programs and compare the output. He then assigned grades appropriately, computing the grade only on the number of words in the comments.
He then quite proudly stood up in front of the class as explained to them what he had done. He had no idea what was about to happen. Essentially, everyone in the class simultaneously worked out that it didn't matter what they put in the comments. They just needed to boost the word count. The class turned red and almost rioted. The professor's jaw dropped.
The professor recalled the assignments and had them regraded by a different T.A. After that day, the original T.A. was never allowed to mark another assignment.