Premark: A System Designed To Organising Course Work For Assessment

Abstract

Unfortunately a side effect of the introduction of some e-learning systems into HEIs has been the loss of flexibility and the imposition of new processes that can result in additional clerical and administrative burdens. In this paper we describe the development of a software tool named PreMark that fits between the e-learning tool (in our case WebCT) and the user (lecturer). PreMark is a prototype software system designed to provide support for lecturers during the assessment process by organizing the coursework electronically submitted by the students. Additionally it helps detect possible cases of plagiarism. Much time can be spent arranging the coursework submitted by the students before actual assessment can take place particularly when there are large numbers of students enrolled on the course. The problems increase when some students do not exactly follow submission instructions. We argue that there can be significant benefits in terms of reduction of effort and in plagiarism detection from such software which can be developed quickly and cheaply as middleware components that interface between lecturers and e-learning systems.