Feature suggestion for self-paced programming courses.

[SHIVAM SINGHANIA]

Hi, 

    I'm a beginner at programming currently taking MITx 6.00.2x on edX. As different students are working on different parts of the course in self-paced courses, students are not allowed to post their solution code to the discussion forums. As a consequence students can't read any other students' solutions. This is a big learning opportunity missed ! If students get to read other's code and provide feedback, they will be able to compare solutions and learn more about writing efficient, clever and readable code.

I thought about a solution: How about the solutions post in discussion of each problem is "locked" unless the student has solved the question with full points. Once the student completes the problems, it makes sense to read and compare with others' code. Hence, upon completion of each problem, the student "unlocks" solutions to learn even more or provide solution for future students to learn. Additionally, students can vote for solutions they like, so the best solutions rise to the top (sorting by votes should be an option) and students don't miss them in the big pool of solutions. It would be really helpful if we can get feedback on our code, this will increase learning and confidence in our code quality when it gets voted by others.

Please reply if you have more suggestions to this idea or if it's not clear to you. If this is a dumb idea and I'm missing something, please let me know.

Thanks.

P.S. : It's nice to see that edX is open source. I will definitely contribute in near future. I don't think I have enough skills now to contribute.

[Nate Aune]

Are you familiar with Open Response Assessment (ORA2). https://edx.readthedocs.io/projects/edx-partner-course-staff/en/latest/exercises_tools/open_response_assessments/index.html

ORA2 can be configured such that a student can't see their grade, until they've reviewed one or more of their peer's answers - as you describe "unlocks". In this way, you could have multiple students all submitting their coding assignments, and grading each others work. But they can't get their grade, until they've completed a number of grading for their peers.

I'm not sure how these answers can be shared more widely with other students, but some tweaks to the ORA2 code could probably make this possible.

Nate

[SHIVAM SINGHANIA]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not sure if that's a solution the course staff would be interested in. Participation should be voluntary. Moreover, courses' automatic graders are better suited to evaluate code. 

This should make things more clear : 

      In instructor paced programming courses, like the previous iterations of MITx - 6.00.1x  which ended 2nd August 2017, we have deadlines to submit our solutions to the Problem sets and exams. Only after the deadline, students can share solutions in the discussion forum ( check attached screenshot ).

In self-paced course, we don't have deadlines and can't post solutions as all students haven't finished the exam. So, I request such a feature that once any student completes an exam with full marks, others' solution becomes available to read.

It can be implemented as part of the discussion forum, where it's hidden or locked unless student completes that specific exam.

Alternatively it can be implemented as the last segment of the exam, similar to ORA2 as you mention.

Are such features already available in edX and the course staff just needs to enable it for the course ?

Thanks.