In [19], Abelardo Pardo provides a sample architecture for a large software system combining the requirements from Dalziel [12] with similar functionality similar to that provided by the digital drop-box features of Blackboard [8]. Pardo's system requires minimal technical knowledge on the part of instructors when setting up items of assessment; It provides a web interface for all configuration pertaining to a given assignment. The web interface is also used by students for submitting work, although the actual transfer mechanism used is in fact email. Submissions are tagged with XML information appropriate to the information being assessed and passed to various modules to handle automatic processing or human examination as appropriate.
The places where Pardo's system fails to meet Dalziel's requirements are in terms of usability for the most critical user of all: the grader. While students spend some minutes submitting assignments, and instructors may spend minutes or perhaps an hour setting up an assignment (actually performing the act of assigning), graders spend hours if not tens of hours dealing with each assignment, and this time is generally proportional to the number of students Pardo's huge system failed to handle the simple axiom of design: Design for the common case. Pardo's description of the grader interface is eight sentences long.