As a Teacher. I have no Time to learn Programming - Streamline Assignment Marking with Python
Part of the Education specialist track
Teaching is a demanding job that takes away the initiative to learn or improve in programming skills. I therefore decided to streamline some of my assignment marking using Python. The time I spent in developing the Python scripts could then be offset by the efficiency and accuracy I gained from the automation.
In this presentation, I will demonstrate how to populate student details into their individual Excel mark sheets, check marking mistakes, automate mark adjustment and collect data from individual mark sheets.
While the above automation can be achieved using standard tools offered by Microsoft by putting the programming logic into Excel formulae or Visual Basic for Application, I will argue using Python to separate the logic from data is a better approach in terms of programming practice and Cybersecurity.
This talk is suitable for Python beginners and the set of Python scripts to automate assignment marking was developed in 2020 when I was teaching at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Each student was marked using standard assessment rubrics stored in an Excel spreadsheet. All the marks of a class of students are then stored in a folder of Excel files. I will demonstrate the automation of the following actions using Python libraries related to Excel such as openpyxl and xlwings.
-Create individual student mark sheets with names and other details filled in
-Check marking mistakes such as missing marks or giving marks above the highest score
-Adjustment of marks in all mark sheets due to errors made in assignment design, etc.
-Collect marks from each individual Excel mark sheet
-Export Excel mark sheets to PDF format for archive purposes
I will also compare the benefits of automating Excel using Python with Excel formulae and Visual Basic for Application by separating programming logic from data. Especially in the light of the Government Cybersecurity initiative "Essential Eight Maturity Model", Visual Basic for Application should be avoided and Python can be a viable solution.
Haggen So is an experienced IT Professional seeking a career in Cybersecurity. He taught as a lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University from 2020 to 2022. Participating in the CLAP-TECH pathway, the University partnered with several secondary schools to create an up-to-date curriculum. Through this partnership, he taught secondary school students Python programming language in their formal curriculum. Haggen So released his first Python program in 2004 under GPL. He also volunteered for PyCon Hong Kong from 2015 to 2022 until he returned to Melbourne.