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Automated capture of paper-based evaluations to provide early feedback to students

Abstract:

Current Learning Management Systems (LMS) are able to use the data automatically captured from the actions of their users to provide immediate feedback to students and to provide a rich dataset to be mined or analyzed to understand and optimize the learning process. However, in traditional education, not all, or even the majority, of learning products are created or processed through the LMS. Traditional education still uses paper-based assignments and assessments as an integral part of the process. In these cases, the data contained in the LMS is often incomplete and do not provide a holistic view of the students' activities. To alleviate this problem, this work describes SARA, a system to automatically capture paper-based assignments and evaluations while the instructor is writing feedback and grading them. This information is uploaded automatically to the LMS to become part of both, the feedback provided to students and the data available for analyzing the learning process. This system is based on low-cost hardware and requires little configuration and intervention from the final user to work. An initial evaluation of the system provides evidence of the feasibility and usefulness of SARA in real-world learning environments.