Photo courtesy The Denver Post

Associate Professor Bruce Henderson demonstrates his Web-based paperless grading system that enables instructors and students to eliminate computer compatibility problems.

By Mary Jacobs

It requires no paper. It is a convenient means of communication between the students and their professor. And it eliminates classroom secrets. They call it electronic grading. Students in the School experienced World Wide Web-based paperless classes for the first time this fall. Through a software program designed by Associate Professor Bruce Henderson, students submit their work via a Web site. Instructors then open the site, make edits and comments, and return the work to the students through the same site. Once the work has been submitted, students in a class are able to use passwords to get access to both the original and the graded versions. Not once is pen put to paper.

"I wanted something easy to use," Henderson said. "I wanted something reliable."

As adviser for the Campus Press, CU's student newspaper, Henderson spends a lot of time editing news stories. While critiquing the stories, the margins would get crammed with his comments. By the time he returned the articles to the students, it was hard to read what he had written. He decided to come up with a computer program that would eliminate the mess.

After thinking about the concept for about a month, Henderson wrote the program in one afternoon. After a week of modifying and making additions, he had the program up and running. Henderson said he used it on the first edition this fall.

Henderson then presented the program to some of his colleagues. Instructor Ramón Chávez and Alan Kirkpatrick, an adjunct instructor, adopted it. About 75 students in two CU journalism classes this fall used the program.

"The students seem to appreciate the system," said Chávez, who used the program in his News Editing class and his graduate-level Newsgathering 1 class.

The selling point of the program is more in-depth communication between professors and students. The program allows the professors more room to make comments and to tell the student authors what they're thinking as a reader. All the comments typed in by the professors appear as electronic yellow sticky notes on the screen between lines of copy.

"You can think of your grading as a dialogue," said Kirkpatrick, who used the electronic grading in his In-depth Reporting class. "You can deliver a lot more feedback to the student, and you're putting it right where it needs to be."

The program also allows more convenient access. The professors can pull up the Web site and edit the students' articles from any computer that can hook up to the Web.

Kirkpatrick used his home computer to do his editing while Chávez accessed the Web on campus. Chávez said he hoped that will change with the purchase of a home computer.

"By next semester I'll be able to read their work on my computer at home, and I'll be able to make more extensive and efficient use of the system," Chávez said "In addition, I'm supposed to replace my office computer with a PowerBook. That means I'll be able to review some of their work when I'm out of town on business trips."

The possibilities afforded through electronic grading have not yet been realized. Henderson said he would like to do some updates and alterations on the program before he even begins to think of marketing it.

Chávez sees some of those other possibilities.

"All this technology applies not just to my journalism classes, but to any correspondence I might have with students," said Chávez, who is also the director of the Office of Student Diversity at the School. "It adds to the communication system and enhances the opportunity to interact by giving, and getting, more feedback sooner."