FAssMII

Feedback-Based E-Assessment in Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering (FAssMII)

Duration: 1 August 2021 – 31 July 2024 || Extended until 31 December 2025
Funding: Foundation for Innovation in Higher Education Teaching

Improving academic STEM education

As the region’s leading engineering institution, HTWK Leipzig is responsible for supplying Northern Saxony with graduates in STEM subjects. The diverse student body and the specific challenges of digital and hybrid teaching in STEM subjects (such as technical drawing) make it necessary to modernise the curriculum and teaching methods. Furthermore, the ad hoc shift of teaching to the digital sphere has made the importance of regular feedback between learners and teachers more apparent. The interaction of these factors has given rise to the innovative idea: by designing and implementing feedback-based e-assessments in mathematics, computer science and engineering, the aim is to boost student motivation in the teaching and learning process and to generate significant added value for the teaching and learning process in a targeted manner.

Sub-projects

E-assessment system with adaptive feedback in mathematics (Prof. Merker and Prof. Schöbel): Students are to be provided with practice exercises in Jupyter Notebooks, which will be assessed in compliance with data protection regulations via an interface with learning management systems (e.g. OPAL). Thanks to the interoperable link between Jupyter notebooks and learning management systems, students’ solutions can be automatically checked, assessed and ‘returned’ to them with individualised feedback.
Automated assessment of skills in creating graphical relationships in STEM subjects (Prof. Strutz and Prof. Thor): The project aims to automatically evaluate technical and scientific drawings (TSDs), as are frequently required in STEM subjects. The planned project will – drawing on established methods of artificial intelligence (such as computer vision and convolutional neural networks) – develop a tool capable of analysing a TNZ designed by students, i.e. identifying the individual components and their relationships to one another, and automatically assessing them against a model solution. The project can be used in all years of study, as the level of difficulty of the tasks can be adjusted by the teaching staff.
Digital question bank with individualised feedback in statics, mechanics and dynamics (Prof. Schubert): Engineering students are to be provided with a digital question bank in the Opal/Onyx learning management system covering the fields of statics, mechanics and dynamics for self-study. Through the dynamic provision of tasks at different levels of difficulty and adaptive feedback, the aim is, on the one hand, to build on students’ individual prior knowledge and, on the other hand, to support students’ individual learning process through step-by-step feedback, guiding them towards finding their own solutions.
Automated delivery and assessment of online engineering practicals in measurement technology (Prof. Rudolph): Laboratory practicals are essential to the learning process for engineering students, particularly due to the application-oriented practical knowledge transfer that takes place there. To this end, remote access to the hardware of an existing laboratory experiment is to be enabled. Through the establishment of a digital laboratory, students have the opportunity to complete the practicals multiple times and flexibly according to their time availability, thereby gaining greater confidence in the practical application of theoretical principles.

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