A Web-based Automatic Program Grader

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A Web-based Automatic Program Grader Don Colton,
Leslie Fife, Andrew Thompson School of
Computing Brigham Young University Hawaii
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Order of Presentation

• Motivation/Rationale
• GradeBot Discussion
• WebBot Improvements
• Observed Results
• Conclusions/Future Work

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Motivation/Rationale

• Ability to program critical tool
• Pace of assignments difficult for beginning
  students
• Beginners need more and smaller steps
• Beginners need rapid feedback
• Grading Burden Introduced
• Large Classes
• More assignments with fast feedback
• Perfect Programs Paradigm

4
GradeBot

• Grading Model
• Submit programs in any supported language
• Automated Test Case Creation
• Comparison to expected output
• Expected results (with test case) returned for
  debugging
• Infinite Loops Handled
• Core Dumps Eliminated
• New Lab Creation Simplified

5
WebBot

• Adds a User Interface to GradeBot
• Simplify the Editing/Submission Process to
  decrease startup time for new students.
• Postpone the challenge of learning new tools
  (Emacs, IDEs, etc.)

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WebBot Login
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WebBot Workspace (frames)
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WebBot Status Report
9
WebBot Options Page
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WebBot Discussion

• IDE Introduction
• not prevented
• only delayed
• Cheating

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Observed Results
Table I WebBot Submission History Table I WebBot Submission History Table I WebBot Submission History Table I WebBot Submission History Table I WebBot Submission History Table I WebBot Submission History Table I WebBot Submission History
Year 2004 2004 2004 2005 2005 2005
Course CS 1 CS 2 Algorithm Analysis CS 1 CS 2 Algorithm Analysis
Students 175 133 19 169 117 42
Submits (purged) (purged) (purged) 73405 15043 5684
Success 6995 1007 189 6518 767 385
Success 8.9 5.1 6.8
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Conclusions/Future Work

• Does Not Handle
• Style not graded
• Cannot provide detailed help in all cases
• Does Handle
• Large number of Requests
• Perfect Programming Paradigm
• Open Entry/Open Exit
• Next Instructor Interface Module

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Mahalo!