Abstract
Practical exercises and assignments are an integral part of programming course, which is a core basic skill required in computer science and best learned by doing. For effective learning, assignments have to be inspected and graded carefully but quickly so that students may benefit from the useful and timely feedback. This can be facilitated by automating the process using a specifically designed software system. PASS is such a system being developed in our department. A first version has been pilot run, with very encouraging responses from tutors and students. We observed that with this automated system, students can have their programs tested anytime, anywhere. They are encouraged to practice more without hesitation or embarrassment about their programming mistakes, and thus this learning environment can boost up their motivation to continue the practice of their programming skills. This paper aims at sharing the initial experiences we gained in using this system.
The work described in this paper was partially supported by Teaching Development Fund (project no. 6980041) from City University of Hong Kong.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Woit, D., Mason, D.: Effectiveness of Online Assessment. SIGCSE Bulletin 35(1), 137–141 (2003)
Sheard, J., Dick, M., Markham, S., Macdonald, I., Walsh, M.: Cheating and Plagiarism - Perceptions and practices of first year IT students. In: Proc. 7th Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, Denmark, pp. 183–187 (2002)
Califf, M., Goodwin, M.: Testing Skills and Knowledge - Introducing a Laboratory Exam in CS1. SIGCSE Bulletin 34(1), 217–221 (2002)
Chong, S.L., Choy, M.: Towards a Progressive Learning Environment for Programming Courses. In: Int Conf of Web Learning: New Horizon in Web-based Learning, pp. 200–205 (2004)
Luck, M., Joy, M.: A Secure On-line Submission System. Software Practice and Experience 29(8), 721–740 (1999)
Kurnia, A., Lim, A., Cheang, B.: Online Judge. Computers & Education 36(4), 299–315 (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Choy, M., Nazir, U., Poon, C.K., Yu, Y.T. (2005). Experiences in Using an Automated System for Improving Students’ Learning of Computer Programming. In: Lau, R.W.H., Li, Q., Cheung, R., Liu, W. (eds) Advances in Web-Based Learning – ICWL 2005. ICWL 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3583. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11528043_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11528043_26
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-27895-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31716-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)