This is the time of the year when for students at Leeds Metropolitan University the spring semester ends. For me, this means work in marking the student assignments. So I spent the whole of last Sunday marking the 35 assignments of the course "Computer-Based Applications". And since then, I went through these assignments one more time, to ensure that I applied the same consistent standards at all submissions. For the comping weekend, I will do the marking for "Computer-Based Graphics", and I still have to mark the students' Individual Projects and the Production Projects. This is actually quite fun, to see how students have progresed and have applied their learned skills in these projects.
The marking scheme is a bit weird: the mark is given as a percentage between 0% and 100%. The final mark is classified as the following: below 40% failed, 40-50$ 3rd, 50-60% 2.2, 60-70% 2.1, and above 70% a 1st. This gives only quite a narrow range between a failed and a first - there is only a 30% difference. That means, a straight linear scale cannot be applied. 50% is considered to be average. above 70% is considered to be exceptionally good. Rarely anyone is supposed to get over 80%. This means that I cannot just give points for the tasks, and if they are all fulfilled that would be 100% - this is not how it is done here. I devised now a few schemes for a hopefully fair assessment, giving "basic" points for general fulfilment of the tasks, and then giving "bonus points" for things that exceed the standard task fulfilment. Now these just need to be normalised so that they correspond fairly to the aplied scale... is not so easy.
Monday and Tuesday were the presentations of the students' Production Projects. Each group presented in timeslots of 20 minutes their work, ranging from CDs, DVDs, web sites, to robotic musical instruments. And on Wednesday and Thursday, these products were presented at the Innovation North Showcase. At the reception on Wednesday evening, there were many guests, visiting these demonstrations and exhibitions.
Then on Thursday night, the End-of-the-Year party of Innovation North at the Leeds Met Bar in Civic Quarter provided an opportunity to chat with students in a relaxed atmosphere. Of course, what was on most students' mind were their markings - but I kept quiet and did not reveal any. Next Monday I will be done with the marking - and will give feedback to the students.
And then the summer term starts, with time to develop research activities and pursue external networking. Busy times are ahead.
