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Case Study: UC San Diego​

Christine Alvarado

Christine Alvarado, Teaching Professor at UCSD

“Vocareum is much easier for students than our previous lab-based submission system due to the web interface with everything residing entirely on the cloud. I successfully used Vocareum in four computer science classes to manage coding assignments for over 1600 students. In addition to using the platform to centralize submission and grading, I am using the new grading analytics and plagiarism detection capabilities.”

CSE8A

Introduction to Programming in Java, Part 1

CSE100

Advanced Data Structures

CSE12

Basic Data Structures and Object-Oriented Design

In this case study

Significantly improved student experience in large Computer Science classes with over 1600 students on the platform. Fully integrated cloud platform with Automated Submission Check, Git Integration, Plagiarism Detection and Grading Analytics.

The Challenge

“I have a team of roughly 22 graders with 700 students working in pairs this quarter. We have to grade 8 assignments (350 submissions each) over the course of the quarter. I needed one common platform for the uploading of all graded materials to allow me to identify the students who are doing well and those having difficulty, so I can reach out to offer praise and provide additional help. In addition, my students need a common platform for submitting assignments, getting feedback on assignment acceptance, and receiving grades on performance.”

The Impact

“One of the things I like the most about Vocareum is that it helps reduce submission errors. We now have very few issues with students submitting the wrong file or submitting a file that doesn’t compile or run. With Vocareum, students get immediate feedback on their scripts and can also see exactly what they uploaded. Prior to that, students ran batch scripts that would copy their files and check them for compilation errors, but after file submission, students couldn’t see what file was actually uploaded. The file was permissioned away from them, and they couldn’t access the directory where the file resided. Because Vocareum is a cloud-based platform, students can access it from anywhere. Plus, they can verify what files have uploaded. The platform also acts as my grade book, thanks to its integration with GitHub and its interface for uploading external scores stored in csv files. With the large class sizes that we have, working with Vocareum has made things easier for both students and graders by allowing us to centralize student grades and assignment submission under one web-based platform.”

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