Mark This For Me

Background

This project began with a problem that I personally faced as a student at Edge Hill University. You are given a brief for each assignment and your submission must align with it.

On top of the planning that goes into an assignment, reviewing your assignment against marking criteria is still part of the process to reassure yourself that you're on the right track. However, this can be a lonely process as sharing your work with others can be prohibited by universities.

This review process can become repetitive, progressively consume more time as the assignment grows, and there is risk of missing something.

I needed an extra pair of eyes that can double check my assignments for me.

Investigation

There are tools to help students with their assignments already but the majority rely on real human markers/writers. This process can take time and usually it is behind a paywall. Moreover, the services often offer writing assignments for students, which is an area I wanted to avoid as much as possible.

Advancements with AI and its accessibility allowed me to test a possible solution to my problem. I formed a quick prompt and threw my assignment and marking criteria into it.

...and?

It worked. Almost.

It spat out constructive feedback with positives and negatives for my assignment. However, it struggled identifying references making it one of the challenges/limitations for now.

Goals

Given the brief background and investigation, overall goals were formed for the new platform tool:

• Make it easy to access and use
• Uphold academic integrity by focusing on feedback instead of spoon-feeding students with answers.

Research

I embarked on designing the UI using Figma and developing the first MVP with NextJS.

I designed two ad-hoc quantitative surveys, each with one question. The surveys were published on SnapChat for the entire year group (2024) at Edge Hill University, which targetted students across various degrees.

Survey 1 (24 Oct. 2023)

Preview question post

Survey 2 (26 Jan. 2024)

Preview question post

Discussion

The results show a total of 127 responses for the first survey and 192 responses for the second survey. At the time of writing this, only the data for the second survey shows 1036 total views. The results show the majority of respondents are not satisfied with the feedback they currently receive on their assignments. Additionally, the majority of respondents may find AI useful to access instant feedback for their assignments.

The survey does not represent actual interaction with the new platform. However, it can further support the motivations for Mark This For Me as an additional tool for students to access feedback whilst upholding academic integrity.