Online Generic Form for Coursework and Labwork Submission

The use of web forms running on the LEARN server has proved to be a simple way of collecting students submissions for coursework and lab work results. After several experiments using bespoke real-time assessment programmes the web form was arrived at. It has proven popular with students because it can be submitted from anywhere that the LEARN pages are accessible. Web forms are based on current, commonly available software, are simple to produce and maintain, do not need to be secure and produce text based results that are easily transferred to Excel, MATLAB or bespoke software for post-deadline batch assessment. There are, however, several improvements that could be made, one of which is described here:

LEARN server web forms are dealt with by the widely used server-side script cgi-mailer.pl. Although this script can be configured to require that data be entered into elements of the form it cannot discriminate between numerical and text based entries and cannot make even simple judgements on whether entered data is likely to be erroneous or not. A server-side mailer script has been created which collects the entered data whilst testing the type and validity of the data.