Senior Design Team sdmay24-36 • Using Generative AI to Assess Student Learning

Project Overview

Our project aims to revolutionize the exam-taking experience for students at Iowa State University by introducing an interactive interface powered by a generative AI chatbot. This innovative platform will enable students to undertake exams in a conversational format facilitated by the chatbot. The chatbot will engage with students, presenting exam questions and dynamically evaluating their responses based on the specific course parameters. The primary objective is to enhance the exam process, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience for students while simplifying the grading process for professors through AI-based assessment.

In specfic, our group wants to implement the following:

  • Enable back-and-forth conversations between students and the AI chatbot, assessing their understanding based on their dialogue and grading their responses in real-time using the generative AI system.
  • Integrate the generative AI into Iowa State's Canvas platform for direct quizzing, facilitating automatic grade updates and providing grading feedback accessible as comments.
  • Incorporate professor's rubric to guide the AI's scope, determining conversation topics and exam constraints (e.g., question type, number, practical/theoretical focus).
  • Adhere to Iowa State's FERPA and netiquette standards, ensuring compliance with regulations, protecting personal information, and maintaining appropriate chatbot language and behavior.
  • Uphold ethical standards by maintaining fairness, minimizing bias, and implementing quality control to provide consistent experiences, preventing substantial variations in quiz difficulty among students.
  • Utilize generative AI.

Client: Professor Henry Duwe
Faculty Advisor: Professor Mathew Wymore
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Team Members

Macintyre Whitney

Team Lead

Macintyre is a senior majoring in computer engineering. After graduation, Mac would like to work with embedded systems and/or FPGA boards. In his free time, Macintyre enjoys: weight lifting, watching sports, golfing, and spending time with friends.

Reese Jamison

Backand & Scribe

Reese is a senior majoring in computer engineering. After completing his undergraduate degree, Reese plans to join John Deere's rotational program as a software engineer. Outside of school, Reese enjoys golfing, playing and watching sports, traveling, and cheering on the Cyclones.

Kyle Geerts

Canvas Integration/API

Kyle is a senior in Software Engineering. After graduation will be transitioning in to full time work with John Deere. In his free time Kyle likes to game, disc golf, and play tennis.

William Nash

Full Stack Design

Will is a senior majoring in cyber security engineering. Currently, Will works for John Deere on their cloud security team, and plans to continue this work full time after graduation. In his free time, Will likes to climb, camp, travel, and hang out with friends and family.

Alec Frey

Prompt Engineering

Alec is a senior majoring in computer engineering. After graduating next spring, he hopes to pursue a career in Full stack development, with an emphasis on mobile development. In his free time he enjoys spending time with his friends, playing video games, and watching a lot of football, mainly the Cyclones and Vikings.

Johnny Tran

Research and Testing

Johnny is a senior in computer engineering. After graduating next semester, he plans to pursue his career in software development. During his free time, he enjoys playing video games, playing and watching basketball and hanging out with friends and family.



Weekly Reports

Report 1
Report 2
Report 3
Report 4
Report 5

Senior Design 491 Documents

Design Doc 1
Design Doc 2
Final Design Document
Midterm Review Presentation Video
Faculty Panel Presentation

Senior Design 492 Documents

Final Report
Industry Review Presentation
Final Poster
Demostration Video