4/22/03

WEB DEVELOPMENT

ASSESSMENT DEBRIEFINGS
Under construction!  Will be updated throughout the semester.

1. INTRODUCTION
2. PREASSESSMENT DEBRIEFINGS
3. ASSESSMENT DEBRIEFINGS

     This is the page where feedback will be given to the class as a whole. (Feedback to individuals will be sent via e-mail or by adding comments to their Web pages.)  Debriefings will normally be focused on the current Lab assignment, PreAssessment, or Assessment.

PREASSESSMENT  DEBRIEFINGS:

These debriefings are published on the PreAssessment Hub.

The following comments are addressed to the class as a whole.  They pertain to those questions with which the class had the most difficulty.

• Assessment 1:.A class average of 68 is EXACTLY what I would like for an assessment, because, by normalizing to 78, everyone has the inducement, for learning from their mistakes, of raising their grade by a whole letter.  So I can say, "Well done, class!"
1. I finally have enough reworks to justify a debrief of the assessment.  After this is published late reworks will not receive the full benefits of the normalization.  This, of course, will mean that the final class average on assessment 1 will not be 78.  Consequently, those of you who did the rework will benefit even more, at the end of the course, when I normalize the final average.
2. I don't understand why people miss many questions on the rework.  Perhaps it is partially because they have yet to recognize the power of the Find in Frame... command found under the Edit menu of Navigator; see section 3.7 of the Checklists.  (If you are not viewing a page that has frames, the command is (not surprisingly) simply Find in Page....)
3. I REALLY don't understand how people miss any of questions 41-50, especially on the rework.  They are all online, in the PreAssessment or Proficiency Evaluation, and you can take them as often as you want to get 100%; this should be a "GIVEAWAY" on the assessment (especially the rework!).  I am really hoping that everyone starts with almost 20% head start when taking an assessment. The essence of my policy of normalization is the belief that students, after they correct their mistakes, are "better" than their original grade, and I want to give them credit for this improvement.  Part of this is based on the "fact (?)" that EVERYONE has 100% understanding of 90 questions (40 from the Preassessment and 50 from the Proficiency Evaluation) even before they take an assessment; after the rework I should be able to say this about 140 questions!   HOWEVER, when students miss some of questions 41-50 this emphasizes that my assumption is NOT correct!!  So those who miss too many of the questions 41-50 really do not deserve the normalization!!
1. If you "memorize" the answers to the preassessment and proficiency evaluation questions, you will probably forget them, perhaps by the time that the assessment rolls around.  However, if you take the time to understand the answer and understand why other answers are not the "best" answer to a particular question, you should be able to "come up" with that best answer when you see the same question again - on the assessment!  So, if you are not "comfortable" with all the answers on the preassessment and proficiency evaluation, PLEASE get comfortable by discussing the questions/answers with classmates, in class, or on the forum!
2. I record the % of questions 41-50 that you get correct along with the overall score.  That % is an indication of your effort preparing for the assessment, i.e. how much effort you put into using the Q&F (question and feedback) I build into the course.  Therefore, if, at the end of the course, you are on a grade borderline, a good % will help you receive the higher grade, but a poor % will almost certainly result in me leaving your grade at the lower level - this is a "swing" of a whole letter grade!
3. The 50 questions on the Proficiency Evaluation are the "best" questions I can ask on the subject being covered by the assessment.  To believe that EVERYONE has 100% understanding of these questions is very satisfying.  After all, fundamental learning is the goal of my teaching so these "best question" are public, hopefully guaranteeing (?) that EVERY student, EVERY year understands ALL of them.  PLEASE don't miss them!!!
4. The most frequently missed questions were (Boldface indicates questions missed most frequently on the rework as well, although these were only 2 or 3 misses.): 2, 8, 12, 13, 16, 23, 25, 26, 32, 37, and 47.  Since most of you corrected your own mistakes on the others, only the boldface questions are discussed below.  (Note that the grader does not give me the wrong answers chosen, so I'll just address what I think is probably the problem.)
• Q2: The key word in the question is "network".  Only "distributed software" are unique to networks; the others can run on a network, but not necessarily.
• Q8: Do a Find... on "switching" in LM I; you will find all of the answers are correct.
• Q13: Three answers are protocols, but only one PPP is strictly for modems.
• Q37: I admit that this would be a difficult question, and one that in my opinion is not very important.  However, some of these are inevitable, especially since I have to write different assessments every semester.  However, if you use the process of elemination, it makes identifying "HSB" as the only possible answer.
• Q47: HEAVENS! This is verbatim from the proficiency evaluation; no one should miss this especially on the rework!
5. The most fundamentally important  questions include: 2, 5, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 34, 38, 40, 41-50.
1. Important questions whose content will not be covered further during the course are 2, 5, 10, 11, 14, 18, 19, 20, 22, 34, 40, 41, 42, 46, and 47.  If you are unclear about any them, post your queries on the Class Forum.
2. Important questions that will be discussed in more detail later include  25, 28, 30, 31, 38, 43, 44, 45, and 48-50.
6. Questions worth additional comment:
• Q5: "Broadband" is a real "buzz word" now days because true streaming multimedia, which is essential to the Web, requires it; current technologies that provide it are cable modems and DSL, both of which should improve, dramatically, in the years to come.
• Q12: This is a "hard" question that is relatively unimportant in COSC 330; as I said previously, some of these are inevitable, especially since I have to write different assessments every semester.
• Q17: Understanding the difference between links is critical to your sanity!  Relative links should get translated, by your FTP application, to absolute links when you upload your Web pages to your host server.  Sometimes mistakes, like not including "http://" in a URL, results in a link, on your server, referring to your hard disk - watch out for this!
• Q20: This may change in the near future.  There are proposals to expand the domain name suffixes, especially those for businesses.
• Q25: This is an easily overlooked point.  Be sure you understand whay DHTML is NOT, itself, a Web development language like HTML.
• Q31 and Q50 are redundant.  I try to avoid this, but, when copy'n'pasting it happens.  Since this is a relatively easy concept, this probably helped more than it hurt.
• Q41-50, obviously, are critically important questions!  If you are not comfortable with ALL of them, see me please.
7. There are nonsense answers in the following questions 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 20, 22(3), 27, 29, 33(3), 36, 37, 39, 46, 47, and 48.  It is just as important (perhaps more important) to recognize these nonsense answers as to recognize the best answer!
8. I am assuming that once you have eliminated two wrong answers, that you will have the right answer to every question if you study your rework, so I do not ask you to rework the rework!   However, please make that assumption accurate, by correcting your mistakes yourself.  If there are any remain confusion about any question, post them on the forum.
9. Finally, I now assume that every student understands how Tony's assessment strategy works, i.e. how the "diagnostic tools" (SAQs/TPQs/FIBs, preassessments, proficiency evaluations, and assessments) and the grade normalization policy are an integral part of the learning experience of all my courses.  If you have ANY questions about any of these diagnostic tools, now is the time to ask them - before we start preparing for Assessment 2 and the rest of the course.
• Assessment 2:   This assessment covers details of HTML tags and syntax and thus is "harder" than other assessments. Also, since I agree with Berniers-Lee that coding HTML is relatively unimportant except for "tweeking" Web pages, I would say that many of the questions from LMs III and IV are less important than those in other LMs.  So missing them is not really a big deal.
1. The class average was 57 (Last year's was 58.), so the normalization factor = 21.  The average on questions 41-50 was 66% (down from last year's 78%) and, still, very disappointing.  What was really disappointing was the fact that the average on 46-50 (the MOST IMPORTANT proficiency evaluation questions) was 55% (Last year's was 60%)!  THIS MUST IMPROVE; help me!)
1. After this is published late reworks will not receive the full benefits of the normalization.  This, of course, will mean that the final class average on assessment 1 will not be 78.  Consequently, those of you who did the rework will benefit even more, at the end of the course, when I normalize the final average.
2. Review items 2, 8, and 9 of the previous debrief (of Assessment 1).
3. The most frequently missed questions were (boldface indicates questions missed most frequently on the rework as well): 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 28, 29, 33, 34, and 49.  (Questions 41-50 everyone had seen before, and 46-50 were from the Proficiency evaluation, which has the most important questions in the course!!  The performance was better on these; however, 49 and 50 were missed by more than half the class!)  Since most of you corrected your own mistakes on the others, only the boldface questions are discussed below.  (Note that the grader does not give me the wrong answers chosen, so I'll just address what I think is probably the problem.)
• Q5: This is the most difficult kind of multiple choice question, one whose answer is "none of these".  It requires "recall" not just "recognition", i.e. you have to know the answer, not just choose from those written out in front of you.  I was surprised that people thought that any of Dreamweaver, Frontpage, and Composer were HTML editors "built into" commercial Web hosts; someone must have been misinterpreting this question!
• Hint for the future: I will only use such questions for VERY important concepts, in this case, the best answer is "client software", but "browser" or even "application software" would also be applicable.  I use these more frequently on public Proficiency Evaluations, where the most important questions are asked, but I use them on assessments for critically important concepts, i.e. those whose answers should be well understood.
• Q11:  I can understand people missing this relatively unimportant question on the assessment on the assessment, but why on the rework?  Do a Find... on each of the answers; this should efficiently take you to the relevant material.
• Q18:  Remember that "applets" are Java applications that are downloaded an executed by Web browsers with I/O via a Web page.  If you think of Java as an programming language like C++, then how is data passed into methods?  Via ________.
• Q19:  This, like Q11, is relatively unimportant (at least for remembering), so missing it on the original is no big deal, but if you missed it on the rework, you are not using Find... effectively.
• Q28: The answer is obvious if you interpret "program instructions" as an "extension" of server side includes.  I guess my two "nonsense answers" misslead those who didn't know the answer; sorry 'bout that!
• Q49 (an IMPORTANT question from the Proficiency Evaluation!): (As I emphasized above, I am REALLY disappointed when any preassessment question is missed on an assessment, but I am astonished when it is missed, a second (third?) time, on the rework.  That can only mean the student is ignoring the Proficiency Evaluation; I wrote that as an integral part of the course.) This is an important question, because the answer is relatively surprising.
4. The most fundamentally important  questions include 2, 4, 6, 7, 13, 15-18, 21, 23-26, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 40 and 42-50.
5. Questions worth additional comment:
• Q1: Be careful not to confuse OSI and ISO!  Also, see Q 50 should help on Q1.
• Q2: The fact that XML is used to write the extensions of HTML to XHTML emphasizes the utility and power of XML.
• Q13: How do each of these tags format the text of an HTML document?
• Q16: Another "none of these" answers; the correct answer must be important!  What is it?
• Q17: This is a critically important question because we are focusing on JavaScript for the remainder of the course.
• Q22:  If you think that "abstop" is "ab stop", it is misleading, but "abs top" makes sense.
• Questions 41-50, ESPECIALLY 46-50, should NOT be missed!   If you missed over 40% of these questions, please see me.
6. There are nonsense answers in the following questions 1(2), 3,4, 8, 9,10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28 (2), 33, 37, 38, and 47.   It is just as important (perhaps more important) to recognize these nonsense answers as to recognize the best answer!
• Assessment 3: Will be published after Assessment 3  has been reworked and returned.