LON-CAPA CONFERENCE May 22-24, 2008

Simon Fraser UniversityBurnaby Mountain Campus

Ray BatchelorRay Batchelor

andand

Uwe KreisUwe Kreis

LON-CAPA Beyond Homework

In Chemistry at Simon Fraser University the main use of LON-CAPA is in the high enrollment courses with a numeric bias.Weekly personalized lecture or pre-lab assignments with multiple

tries, and both feedback and open discussion are the norm. Multiple choice bubble sheet exams are also in general use in the

first year courses.The main motivation is to reduce marker workload.

Another area in which enrollments seem high enough to warrant

automated grading are in the first organic chem courses.

We have not yet seen a demand for online organic chem lecture assignments. However, we have been running simple organic chem

prelabs for several years. In the last year we have been experimenting with semi-automated Lab Reports or Dry-labs in

organic chem.

Only a few essay-type responses need to be manually graded.

An Organic Chem Lab ReportPublished

Conditioned Sequence

Student chooses own starting material.

Next 5 problems depend upon this choice.

blockcond

Parts shown “1-at-a-time”. Default feedback suppressed in some, augmented in others.

customresponse, organicresponse, chemresponse, essayresponse,

imageresponse, etc…

Blocked until “maxtries” is reached for last part of

preceding problem. Effectively hides the rest of

the sequence.

Complementary condition on alternate pathways to

sequence “Finish” needed to maintain continuity with

rest of Main sequence.For problems preceding a

blocking condition, problem parts are shown one-at-a-time, so that the block is

only removed once all parts become closed to further

submission.

Simple Linear Sequence with

blocking conditions at key points.

Effectively produces unidirectional, single

continuous pathway at any given moment.

Grading for second part depends upon response to first part. Result can be 2,1, or 0 points interdependently upon both the individual

limits and on the range.

1st Part: 1 point if (162 °C ≤ “upper” ≤ 169 °C)

2nd Part: 1 point if (0 °C ≤ “upper”-”lower” ≤ 5 °C) AND (155 °C ≤ “upper” ≤ 169 °C)

e.g. p-bromoacetanilide

Lit. mp 167-169 °C

62% of students score 2/2

33% score 1/2

5% score 0/2

Default system feedback is suppressed. However, submitted JME drawing is redisplayed and an optional second try allowed.

Used in a two-part question where the second part is an essayresponse explanation of why anisole is an ortho/para director. The submitted drawing is redisplayed, maxtries=3, and the correct/incorrect status is shown to allow a

fair chance to get the essay points.

Mis-calibration of pointer, on rare occasions, is an

issue with specific

computers.

0-point question with unlimited

tries, allows no-cost chance to see how “click-on-the-image”

works.

No more excuses.

Next 3 “click-on-the-image” parts chosen from bands associated with :

N-H stretch; aromatic C-H stretch; –N-H deformation; aromatic C=C stretch; C-N stretch; aromatic ring out-of-plane bending.

Final Mark Distribution Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution Experiment

Lab Report (Spring 2007)

Average=23.8

StDev=4.2

“From the students we hear very little; usually only if they

messed up. So that is good news as far as

I'm concerned. It means that the

questions are well coded, are clear and make sense to them. For us, it's a really big time saver… it saves

time on marking reports. Even the

essay questions are easier and faster to mark in the Loncapa system. That frees up time for the TAs to do

more cheating checks.”

--U.K