Self-Assessment Questions - Operating Systems and Computer Networks

What does the dataset contain?
The dataset contains a list of XML files and JPG images. The XML files contain a description of a certain type of self-assessment questions to be load and processed by a plugin called qtype_selfassess [1] for the Moodle learning management system.

The XML files were names as follow:

<number of course unit>-<question-ID>-selfassess-<short name of the qestion>.xml

The file unit_1-262-selfassess-Caching.xml for instance, is about a self-assessment question of the first course unit ("unit_1") that has the ID 263, and is about the topic "Caching". Most of the short names are in German since the content of the files is German as well.
The JPG files are referenced in the XML files.

What is the purpose and origin of the data?
In order to give students the chance of iterative improvement, the SelfAssess-plugin [1], that allows students to create and assess solutions unlimited times, was implemented in Moodle. Students can open a question to start work. The plugin shows the question and asks the student to create and upload a solution. Solutions may be uploaded as image (e.g. photo, scan) or PDF file. Thereafter, the plugin presents a list of instructor-defined assessment criteria and a link to the sample solution, and asks to assess the uploaded solution. The plugin then presents feedback to the students based on their self-assessment. For this purpose, instructors defined an error tree for each question that maps typical errors to detect one or a combination of not considered criteria on one feedback text. Feedback texts help the student to improve their solution, e.g. by providing learning goal feedback (such as misconceived concepts) and learning process feedback (such as links to relevant resources, things to improve, or activities to do), until they self-assess their solution as correct or as good enough. After receiving the feedback, students could either improve their solution by performing a new iteration of the process (create, upload, self-assess the improved solution again, receive feedback, and take or decline another iteration) or finish the exercise.

For the mentioned plugin 43 self-assessment questions including assessment criteria and feedback have been created for fundamental computer science course about operating systems and computer networks. The course was offered at FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany, in winter term 2019/20 and 2020/21 by Professor Dr. Jörg M. Haake.

Further information about the plugin and the proposed self-assessment question type can be found in [2] and [3].

References
[1] Steinkohl, K., Burchart, M., Haake, J.M., Seidel, N. (2020). SelfAssess Question Type Plugin for
Moodle. https://github.com/D2L2/qtype_selfassess
[2] Haake, J. M.; Seidel, N.; Karolyi, H.; Ma, L.: Self-Assessment mit High-Information Feedback. DELFI 2020–Die 18. Fachtagung Bildungstechnologien der Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V., 2020.
[3] Haake, J. M., Seidel, N., Karolyi, H., & Burchart, M. (2021). Accuracy of self-assessments in higher education. In DELFI 2020 – Die 19. Fachtagung Bildungstechnologien der Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. Bonn.

Acknowledgments.

This research was supported by the Research Cluster "Digitalization, Diversity and Lifelong Learning – Consequences for Higher Education" (D2L2) of the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany.