A web-based learning management system with automatic assessment resources

One of the desirable skills for engineering students is the ability of creating and understanding geometric objects. Most of this ability is acquired during elementary and high school courses, but some acquisition are left for undergraduate studies. The introduction of dynamic geometry (DG) brings dynamicity to the traditional geometry learning process. Some DG systems present web-based versions, allowing students to use them worldwide through web browsers. By using such systems, students may increase their performance on solving geometric problems, which increase the amount of work to be assessed by teachers or tutors. As a consequence, the delay between the time of submitting the student answer for a problem and its feedback is also increased. Nevertheless, if the learning process is mediated by a web- based learning system, the delay on providing feedback may cause student´s disappointment or course abandonment. In this paper we present the free software SAW, a web-based learning management system that incorporates e-learning modules (e-LMs) for specific learning contents, such as geometry or programming. An e-LM is a Java applet that offer resources for client/server communication and may offer resources for problem authoring and automatic assessment.