Meager and madbags: automated graders for microsoft excel and access assignments
Dawn E. Wilkins, Thomas G. Hill · 2003
Although program grading has been an active area of research in computer science education, there is little evidence of research on automated grading systems for office applications. MEAGER is an automated grader for use by instructors in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Office application courses. MEAGER performs static analysis on Microsoft Excel workbooks. MEAGER compares a student workbook with the instructor's correct version of the workbook, marks the student workbook, and places a grade report in the workbook. MADBAGS, an automated Microsoft Access database grader, is a companion product to MEAGER. MADBAGS grades database tables and queries. The program adds to the student database an errors table composed of missing or incorrect database objects and a grade report. The programs have similar interfaces. They both have grading histories, error reports, and a plagiarism detection tool. The graders have been tested in thirty-nine Microsoft Office applications classes (with about 800 students) over two semesters. Thousands of assignments have been graded. According to a survey of instructors using the programs, the graders were extremely accurate and saved hours of grading time. Students felt the grading was fair and accurate.