For the past five years we have been using a method inspired by the just-in-time-teachingapproach to teach our first year Newtonian mechanics class, which typically contains 240-280 students. This replaced a standard course, that did not engage the students sufficiently.With such a large cohort, it is difficult to mark students' assessments quickly, and give therequired feedback in a timely manner. We discuss how we capture students? marks andcommon difficulties in a short period, so we can plan an example class addressing these.We explain why we have chosen a commercial e-assessment tool. We discuss the types ofassignments available, especially those which allow for algebraic answers, and show whichtypes of assessments were found most effective, and describe the underlying reasons. Wewill specifically discuss the steps that were needed to take to create a positive experiencefor the students?our initial experience was quite negative, and influenced the students'engagement.We discuss in detail the important lessons we have learned about the mechanisms of qualitycontrol that underlie the use of online mathematical assessments. The core step in ourmethod is to use student answers to test the quality of questions. The way of performingquality tests is highly non-trivial and time-consuming, but is crucially important. Finally, weshall discuss further developments that would make this type of rich assessment more usefulto the students.
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