Automated feedback and marking system in computing

The recent National Student Survey (NSS) results for taught courses in Higher Education Institutions have once again revealed that assessment and feedback have obtained the lowest scores when compared to other aspects such as teaching, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, personal development and overall satisfaction. This pattern is consistent with the scores obtained over the last ten years. It is imperative that universities need to look into ways of improving these scores. The Computing department at the University of Northampton have developed and used a tool to provide automated instant feedback to formative assessments for modules teaching programming. Initial evaluation of the tool by students has produced encouraging results and led to following research questions: a) What is the state of the art in automated marking? b) an automated marking and feedback systems enhance student learning, engagement and experience? c)Could they be developed for other areas in STEM? d) Could they be used for summative assessments? e) Is the quality of automated feedback superior to manual feedback? Preliminary findings of this research project will be presented