Webinar: How to automatically grade Data Science Assignments in R and Python

Autograding large Data Science assignments has become way quicker and effective with the release of our latest feature: AutoTest Caching. To celebrate that, CodeGrade's founder and Product Expert Devin Hillenius explains how to set up a basic automatically graded Data Science assignment (in both R and Python) in CodeGrade in our latest webinar (recorded on June 4th 2021 and available on demand now).

Data Science autograding in CodeGrade

Data Science is one of the most popular disciplines at this moment, data science courses are especially popular amongst non Computer Science students. These courses teach basic Python, R and other useful skills for this increasingly data-driven world. As this is often the first coding experience for these students, having instant automatic feedback helps motivate them throughout the beginning of the course and accelerate their first steps of coding.

Furthermore, it is very important to provide many exercises to these beginning students, an autograder like CodeGrade gives you the tools to provide many exercises to your students without extra grading work. Also, the subtasks of these assignments can be conveniently graded by separate tests and rubric categories in CodeGrade, motivating the students by making their progress visible and insightful.

Some of the tools CodeGrade offers for effective data science autograding are:

• Use hidden data sets and test cases for your students to validate their code and make sure they did not "pattern match" the answers of the open tests. This way, you assess the actual inner workings of their code. Hidden tests are automatically run after the deadline and are explained by Devin in the webinar or in this guide.
• Upload or download your required data sets easily to AutoTest. Data sets can be uploaded as fixtures or downloaded.
• AutoTest caching is turned on by default, and will make sure that even for your Data Science assignments with large configurations (e.g. large data sets or installing of new packages or software) will give your students feedback instantly. Find out about all ins- and outs of this new feature in the webinar or in this guide.