Digital assessment of individual engineering assignments in mass courses

In this article a digitally assisted tool, that uses a master computer program for a particular assignment, and enables quick and semi‐automatic assessment is introduced. Since the data allocated to each student is different from the other classmates, acquiring the correct results depends on the sole effort of the student. The master program will produces the correct results in a tabular format. Then student is asked to provide his/her results with same format, and submit the work to the course web site. The marker assesses the work by running the master program and observing the correct results. In last step the student's result with the same format will be compared with the correct results and an appropriate feedback will be provided for that student. In the first experiment 300 undergraduate students with different mathematical knowledge, have been asked to find the acceptable ranges of a gear ratios for a particular electromechanical device and submit their results. In the 2nd experiment 40 postgraduate students have been, with different engineering and science degrees, asked to find the optimal passive fire protection system for the structural elements. It is concluded that for strengthening the innovation in students, apart from group projects, the individual assignments are also necessary. The digital method described in this paper, can reduce the assessment time substantially, also provides appropriate feedback for each student. Future applications, improvements are discussed, commented upon.