CodeGrade Success Story at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

We recently came across this CodeGrade success story from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Thanks to CodeGrade, computer science students at UNLV are performing better in computer programming courses than ever before. Of course, reading this article made our day here at the CodeGrade office and we’d love to share some of their key insights with you.

In this recent post on the UNLV IT News Center, Mark Kasselhut, senior e-learning technology program manager, discusses piloting and adopting CodeGrade in the 2021-22 academic year. In 2021-22 UNLV piloted CodeGrade to a combined 1,100 students. They selected CodeGrade because it met many university requirements, including security, privacy, and accessibility standards. 

Furthermore, Mark adds that “After our initial evaluation of several products, we recommended CodeGrade because it was compatible with many existing IT systems and could be easily integrated into WebCampus.”. CodeGrade has an LTI integration with UNLV’s Instructure Canvas learning environment, which allows members, grades and assignments to be synchronized seamlessly.

Dr. Ed Jorgensen, a computer science professor in the college of engineering at UNLV, initially saw the need for an autograding tool: he and his colleagues would spend countless hours manually grading hundreds of code assignments. Something we see very often at universities without any autograding software in place yet. 

Dr. Ed Jorgensen could have never imagined the impact CodeGrade would have on student performance: “CodeGrade allows us to engage and give feedback to students too, going line by line and making comments,” he said. “With personalized feedback, students are much more likely to learn the concepts and do better on assignments.”