Student-Designed Exam Question with High-Quality Solution

All Course Assessments

Overview of the Course

What is the subject context of the course?

The course introduces students to distributed algorithms and fundamental results in the field of distributed computing.

Main objective of this course: What should students learn and be able to do at the end of the course?

At the end of the course, students should be able to understand and devise distributed algorithms and prove their correctness.

Why was the specific assessment format chosen?

The format encourages students to engage actively with the course content by formulating their own exam questions. This promotes a deeper understanding of the subject, as it requires them to reflect on what aspects of the topic are essential.

How are students prepared for the assessment?

There is no explicit preparation for this specific assessment format. However, students participate in lectures and exercises throughout the semester, where they regularly work on tasks of comparable complexity and scope.

In addition, students can take style inspiration from past exam questions and their solutions.

Shared Experience

How many times has the assessment been conducted in this format?

The bonus system involving exam question design has been offered for over 10 years. Over time, it was replaced by other bonus formats, such as reading assignments that were later included in the examination.

We have since returned to the original format of designing exam questions. However, the number of exam questions submitted varies greatly, from less than 10 to more than 100 per semester.

What contributed to the success?

Formulating an exam question is a highly demanding task that stimulates deep engagement and promotes understanding.

From the lecturers’ perspective:
The main advantage is that lecturers get to see lots of interesting ideas submitted by students.

From the students’ perspective:
Bonus tasks are popular because they offer an opportunity to improve final grades.

What were the challenges and how were they overcome?

Initially, there were only two submission deadlines, which led to a very high workload within a short time frame.

Today, students can submit their exam question on 12 different dates throughout the semester. This distributes the workload more evenly among the doctoral teaching assistants and offers students a more structured process.

While individual doctoral teaching assistants may still face high workloads, the risk has been significantly reduced.

Are there any further developments planned?

In the future, if the number of submitted questions increases, we may consider introducing peer feedback — although this is not currently necessary.

What tips would you give lecturers who are planning a similar assessment?

Start by considering whether the subject is suitable for question design — not every topic lends itself to this format.

Also, make sure that enough doctoral teaching assistants are available to assess the submissions. Student teaching assistants are not suitable for this task due to the required level of expertise.