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Maximising Student Success with Automatic Formative Feedback for Both Teachers and Students

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Computer Assisted Assessment. Research into E-Assessment (TEA 2015)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 571))

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Abstract

This paper discusses the outcomes from the building and empirical investigation of two automatic feedback systems, namely OpenMentor and OpenEssayist that can support student learning. The findings from OpenMentor and OpenEssayist usage suggest that prompt targeted feedback for time poor students can maximise student success. Both systems facilitate the users to take ownership and reflect on their own work, through provision of feedback at a point where they can build on it in subsequent tasks. This should have the most impact on the users’ understanding of the requirements of academic writing and the tutors’ understanding of feedback for academic writing. The systems are also starting to be used as research tools that allow pedagogical strategies to be open to test.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Grails is an open source web application framework.

  2. 2.

    Natural Language Processing Toolkit, see http://nltk.org/.

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Acknowledgements

The OpenEssayist Research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, grant numbers EP/J005959/1 & EP/J005231/1). Thanks are also due to the SAFeSEA team who produced OpenEssayist, namely John Richardson, Alison Twiner, Debora Field and Stephen Pulman. I would also like to thank Stuart Watt and the JISC for their support in the development of OpenMentor.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK

    Denise Whitelock

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  1. Denise Whitelock
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Correspondence to Denise Whitelock .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Luxembourg Inst. of Science and Technol., Esch/Alzette, Luxembourg

    Eric Ras

  2. Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands

    Desirée Joosten-ten Brinke

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Whitelock, D. (2015). Maximising Student Success with Automatic Formative Feedback for Both Teachers and Students. In: Ras, E., Joosten-ten Brinke, D. (eds) Computer Assisted Assessment. Research into E-Assessment. TEA 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 571. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27704-2_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27704-2_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27703-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27704-2

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