Picking nits

Christian Lawson-Perfect, Newcastle University
Chris Sangwin, University of Edinburgh

EAMS 2022

EAMS 2016: "The e-assessment experience"

A still from the 2016 talk, showing a badly-written question

Nits

We're talking about things that are "sort of optional".

They can lead to:

We are resisting the urge to complain.

Some things come up often

and you can improve your material by being aware of them.

Typical chain of events 1.

  1. Frustration from student → colleague raises support request to me "Why isn’t the correct answer accepted as correct?"
  2. Underlying problem: STACK thinks x*(-y) = -x*y but that (-x)*(-y) <> x*y under the “Equals Com Ass” test
  3. Answer test behaviour, and the alternative is well documented. How did this situation arise?

Typical chain of events 2.

  1. Frustration from student → colleague raises support request to me "Question doesn’t work."
  2. Underlying problem: Authoring problem with a particular random version, not spotted during testing.
  3. Addition of single test case trying to evaluate the “teacher’s answer” reveals problems with internal variable. Use of testing is well documented… How did this situation arise?

Let's make a list of nits

eams.ncl.ac.uk/links/2022/picking-nits