What are Andromatics and CODAS?
Andromatics is the name of our firm. It makes marking and grading software for schools, universities and other educational institutions. CODAS is the name of the software. It enables teachers to mark digital exams and assignments quickly, efficiently and reliably.
Where does the name Andromatics come from?
The name can be split into two parts. ‘Andro’ stands for human: the assessment is still under the control of a person – the teacher. ‘Matics’ indicates the automated characteristic of the system.
How much does CODAS cost?
We are happy to give any interested party a tailor-made estimate.
How user friendly is CODAS?
CODAS is a user friendly system. However, we always provide a short training programme for teachers. This makes sure that teachers are familiar with the system from day one and quickly feel at home using CODAS.
Is it also possible to mark exams without the intervention of a teacher?
CODAS does not replace a teacher. What it does do is provide the teacher with a powerful tool. CODAS is a learning system; it learns from the teacher what are good answers and what are poor answers. This enables it to grade exams at great speed. However, the teacher stays in control at all stages.
Is marking using CODAS really that quick? A teacher still has to instruct it which are good and which are bad answers?
The program makes an ordered list of the exam answers/assignment according to their quality. It provides the teacher with an initial ranking of the answers based on similarities; answers that are very different to the majority of the answers, or have very little text, are more likely to be poor answers. Rather than having to search randomly, the teacher can use this initial ranking to indicate a number of good answers and a number of bad answers. CODAS can calculate ranking effectively based upon a relatively small number of individually marked answers.
How many words must exam answers/assignments have for the CODAS application?
CODAS was primarily developed to deal with answers from approx. hundred to several thousand words. CODAS is ideal where exams/ assignments have been written by many students. For example, it can deal extremely well with exams sat by hundreds of students.
How does CODAS work if more than one person is marking the exam?
Not only does CODAS mark exams extremely quickly, it also monitors for consistency and reliability. If there are discrepancies between the way different markers are marking answers, this will also quickly become apparent.
Does CODAS work via the web or only as a local program?
[do you want to wait until the web service is operational with this?] As well as the local program, a web service will shortly be available. The web service will make it possible to mark and grade exams via a portal to the uploaded exam answers/assignments.
Can CODAS mark mathematical formulae?
We would advise you to use other tools to mark assignments that involve many mathematical formulae.
What kind of documents can CODAS mark?
CODAS can process various document formats, for example, Word, Notepad, Pdf and text.
How easy is it to translate the results into the desired grading scheme?
CODAS can export the results in various forms, including spread-sheet form. Calculations to several decimal points is possible.
How do pupils and students react to having their work marked by a computer?
Students do not appear to have a problem with CODAS computer assisted marking. Nor are there more complaints about a grade than when answers have been graded by human markers. Some lecturers even report that there are fewer complaints when CODAS is used.
As long as the teacher is consistent in the norms that are used to determine the good and the bad answers, CODAS will be very reliable. This consistency is an advantage of CODAS: it is not affected by differing interpretations that can occur when student assistants mark exams on the basis of a model answer.
Can supervisors easily check CODAS results?
CODAS results can be easily monitored. Answers that are outliers are immediately apparent.
Are there vacancies at Andromatics?
At this time we are not looking for new colleagues, as all positions are full. However, interested persons are always welcome to forward their CVs to us.