Automated Assessment of Free Text Questions for MOOC Using Regular Expressions

Automated Assessment Tools Classification

These types of tools or assessment instruments are based on automatic applications that examine the answers using computer tools that implement a prefixed algorithm. The use of these tools aims to provide consistent corrections in the responses submitted to the automatic system. There are different types of instruments that can go into this classification, but the key characteristic is that it does not involve human intervention, which makes them particularly suitable for use in MOOC.

Some assessment tools that can be marked automatically:

• 1.

  Calculated

• 2.

  Simple Calculated

• 3.

  Calculated Multi-choice

• 4.

  Description

• 5.

  Essay

• 6.

  Matching

• 7.

  Embedded Answers

• 8.

  Multiple Choice

• 9.

  Short-Answer

• 10.

  Numerical

• 11.

  True/False

• 12.

  Third-party question types

• 13.

  Surveys and questionnaires

• 14.

  Rating scale

This report will seek to clarify the use of technology in short answer questions only, because essay or long answer questions assessment tools have been studied by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), who that are investigating it for the EDX platform as an essay automatic scoring called AEG (Automated Essay Grading) (Markoff, 2013).

Overview Of Current Assessment Systems For Mooc

Most MOOCs have a mix of assessment systems, usually a single type of assessment tool, multiple choice tests, and sometimes peer review.

Some of the elements that have current platforms are:

• 1.

  Multiple choice questions and peer assessment;

• 2.

  Multiple choice questions only;

• 3.

  Peer review only;

• 4.

  Others.

Most platforms studied by Katy Jordan (Jordan, 2013) are xMOOCs, assessments that take place in them are associated with these type of courses. But cMOOCs also has a number of assessment instruments to consider, such as, among others:

• 1.

  Peer assessment of the activities carried out;

• 2.

  The knowledge generated and collaborative learning.