Point or Time: Motivating Quality Coding Submissions

Instructors face the challenge of encouraging well-tested, quality code submissions from students while battling the double-edged sword of the autograder. While autograders can provide feedback to students quickly, students can become reliant on the autograder as the primary means for determining correctness of their code. In a similar spirit, instructors also frequently promote submitting early and not waiting until the last second. To encourage students to submit fewer erroneous submissions and completing programming assignments earlier, we examine two lab submission policies, time-restricted submissions and point-restricted submissions, implemented in consecutive semesters of a large Computer Architecture course. We survey students on their perception of these two policies and analyze the lab data and compare between the two semesters. Our initial results show that while students preferred the time-restricted policy, the point-restricted policy is positively affecting students' correct submission percentage, as well as students submitting correct submissions earlier.