An automated learning system for Java programming

The increase in the numbers enrolling in university computer courses makes huge demands on resources, and maintaining standards of teaching and tutorial support is almost impossible without a massive increase in staff. To overcome this situation, the authors have developed RoboProf, an automated learning environment which, as well as generating and assessing programming exercises, provides ongoing assistance and feedback to students without extra demands on lecturer and tutors' time. This system also contains a technique for detecting plagiarism, an increasing problem in computing courses worldwide. For this research, RoboProf was used to teach Java programming to a class containing nearly 300 students in the first year of a computing degree. Use of the system by students was monitored and recorded on log files in order to investigate the extent to which usage patterns influence achieved programming skill. An analysis shows that students who complete the set of RoboProf exercises perform significantly better than those who do not. The timeliness in which these exercises are completed relative to other students is significant: early solvers get higher marks, and students solving the problems with fewer attempts get higher marks. Not surprisingly, plagiarists achieve a lower score than those who do their own work. Other factors that were found to influence programming performance included entry standards and gender. Entry qualifications impacted positively on performance, and males performed significantly better than females. There was a significant positive correlation between the score achieved in the RoboProf course and the performance in a subsequent computing course administered in the traditional manner.     

Plagiarism in programming assignments

The assessment of programming courses is usually carried out by means of programming assignments. Since it is simple to copy and edit computer programs, however, there will always be a temptation among some students following such courses to copy and modify the work of others. As the number of students in these courses is often high, it can be very difficult to detect this plagiarism. The authors have developed a package which will allow programming assignments to be submitted online, and which includes software to assist in detecting possible instances of plagiarism. In this paper, they discuss the concerns that motivated this work, describe the developed software, tailoring the software to different requirements and finally consider its implications for large group teaching     

Computer algorithms for plagiarism detection

A survey of computer algorithms used for the detection of student plagiarism is presented. A summary of several algorithms is provided. Common features of the different plagiarism detection algorithms are described. Ethical and administrative issues involving detected plagiarism are discussed     

Detection of Plagiarism in Programming Assignments

Laboratory work assignments are very important for computer science learning. Over the last 12 years many students have been involved in solving such assignments in the authors' department, having reached a figure of more than 400 students doing the same assignment in the same year. This number of students has required teachers to pay special attention to conceivable plagiarism cases. A plagiarism detection tool has been developed as part of a full toolset for helping in the management of the laboratory work assignments. This tool defines and uses four similarity criteria to measure how similar two assignment implementations are. The paper describes the plagiarism detection tool and the experience of using it over the last 12 years in four different programming assignments, from microprogramming a CPU to system programming in C.     

Educational issues on number representation and arithmetic in computers: an undergraduate laboratory

This paper presents an initiative to teach computer representation of numbers and arithmetic in undergraduate courses in computer science and engineering. The approach is based upon carefully designed practical exercises that highlight the main properties and computational issues of finite-length number representation and arithmetic. In conjunction with the exercises, an auxiliary computer-based environment constitutes a valuable support tool for students to learn and understand the concepts involved. For integer representation, this work has focused on the standard 2's complement. Special emphasis has been put on the algorithms for integer arithmetic operations. For floating-point representation, simpler formats have been used as an introduction to the IEEE Standard 754, with the aim of presenting the fundamentals of the floating-point computation and emphasizing its limitations. This approach could be included in introductory courses related to computer organization, programming, discrete mathematics, or numerical methods.     

A Technological Tool to Detect Plagiarized Projects in Microsoft Access

Over one in ten students surveyed have admitted to copying programs in courses with computer assignments. The ease with which digital coursework can be copied and the impracticality of manually checking for plagiarized projects in large courses has only compounded the problem. As current research has focused predominantly on detecting plagiarism for textual applications such as source code and documents, there exists a gap in detecting plagiarism in graphically-driven applications. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of a technological tool in detecting plagiarized projects in a course using Microsoft Access. Seven semesters of data were collected from a large technology-oriented course in which the tool had been in use. Comparing semesters before and after the technological tool was introduced demonstrates a significant decrease in the number of projects being duplicated. The results indicate combining technology and policy can be effective in curtailing blatant plagiarism within large technology courses.     

A Cautionary Note on Checking Software Engineering Papers for Plagiarism

Several tools are marketed to the educational community for plagiarism detection and prevention. This article briefly contrasts the performance of two leading tools, TurnItIn and MyDropBox, in detecting submissions that were obviously plagiarized from articles published in IEEE journals. Both tools performed poorly because they do not compare submitted writings to publications in the IEEE database. Moreover, these tools do not cover the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) database or several others important for scholarly work in software engineering. Reports from these tools suggesting that a submission has ldquopassedrdquo can encourage false confidence in the integrity of a submitted writing. Additionally, students can submit drafts to determine the extent to which these tools detect plagiarism in their work. Because the tool samples the engineering professional literature narrowly, the student who chooses to plagiarize can use this tool to determine what plagiarism will be invisible to the faculty member. An appearance of successful plagiarism prevention may in fact reflect better training of students to avoid plagiarism detection.     

Applying an interdisciplinary approach to teaching computer ethics

The question of who should teach courses on ethical aspects of technology continues to be debated in the computer ethics literature. A central question is whether such courses should be taught by philosophy faculty or by computer science/engineering faculty. This analysis focuses on computer ethics instruction within the undergraduate computer science curriculum.     

Cluster computing in the classroom and integration with computing curricula 2001

With the progress of research on cluster computing, many universities have begun to offer various courses covering cluster computing. A wide variety of content can be taught in these courses. Because of this variation, a difficulty that arises is the selection of appropriate course material. The selection is complicated because some content in cluster computing may also be covered by other courses in the undergraduate curriculum, and the background of students enrolled in cluster computing courses varies. These aspects of cluster computing make the development of good course material difficult. Combining experiences in teaching cluster computing at universities in the United States and Australia, this paper presents prospective topics in cluster computing and a wide variety of information sources from which instructors can choose. The course material is described in relation to the knowledge units of the Joint IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computing Curricula 2001 and includes system architecture, parallel programming, algorithms, and applications. Instructors can select units in each of the topical areas and develop their own syllabi to meet course objectives. The authors share their experiences in teaching cluster computing and the topics chosen, depending on course objectives.     

Pedagogy and Processes for a Computer Programming Outreach Workshop—The Bridge to College Model

This paper describes a model for computer programming outreach workshops aimed at second-level students (ages 15–16). Participants engage in a series of programming activities based on the Scratch visual programming language, and a very strong group-based pedagogy is followed. Participants are not required to have any prior programming experience. An empirical evaluation was undertaken to evaluate to what extent the model was successful in: 1) giving the participants a deeper understanding of what studying a computing degree and working in the computing profession entails; and 2) increasing their interest in pursuing a third-level qualification in a computer-related area.      

The dehydrated VAX-a paradigm for teaching introductory computerengineering

A method used to take advantage of the computer literacy of incoming students and to motivate and enhance a pair of introductory computer engineering courses is described. To carry electrical engineering students from their initial view of a computer as a terminal which understands Fortran to a solid view of what a computing engine does and how to build one, the authors have found it very effective to include a short, intense section on assembly-language programming. The section emphasizes the connection between high-level language programming constructs and machine architecture. To meet the needs of effective material coverage in a five-week segment of the overall two-quarter course, the enormous VAX instruction set was reduced to what looks rather like a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set of 16 instructions. The instructions selected force full awareness of the details of machine performance and of dynamic memory access and control. By keeping the tool-set small, there is time to concentrate on data structures, internal representations, connections between the high-level language (HLL) and the assembly language expression thereof, and the hardware structures which must underlie computational activity     

Making connections - ABCs of what engineering schools don't teach

This paper describes the information what engineering schools don't teach. Students who graduate with degrees in engineering will leave school with a great deal of technical knowledge, it's all the nontechnical information, which wasn't taught in class, that will ultimately determine each student's level of success. The paper includes Carl Selinger's guidance to engineering students in a professional world. His goals for the book are simple: to introduce engineers to what Selinger calls real-world issues, to guide engineers in assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and to improving them selves in the needed areas. The reactions to Selinger's ideas from working engineers and students who have attended one of the author's seminars are peppered throughout the book, offering a kind of reality check for the reader in terms of the value of his message     

Self-Paced and Error-Free Code Microprocessor Courses

This short note describes two courses that dealt with microprocessors in an electrical engineering curriculum. The first course, taught at the junior level at Notre Dame, was in logic design. Training students in error-free microprocessor realization of logic circuits was a major course objective. The course was unique in that the first half was that of a "standard" logic curriculum, while the second half was devoted to microprocessor realization of combinational and sequential logic circuits. This second half included material on the Intel 8080 microprocessor, structured programming, a high level programming language (PL/M) and the application of skills in these areas to create microprocessor logic circuits. The course was self-paced. It achieved its primary objective and received an enthusiastic response from the students. The second course, taught at a senior/graduate level at the University of Tulsa, was titled "Advanced Microprocessor Systems Design." Its objectives were to introduce students to the 16 bit Intel 8086 microprocessor and associated integrated circuits, to develop student skills in both an assembly language (ASM-86) and a high level language (PL/M-86), and to teach the students the concepts of top-down structured design. Each student designed a small microcomputer based on the 8086 and its associated integrated circuits. In both courses, students learned new microprocessor and programming skills quickly and efficiently. As hoped, use of disciplined techniques such as careful problem statement and structured programming led students in both courses to error-free microprocessor logic circuits.     

Programming Anxiety Amongst Computing Students—A Key in the Retention Debate?

Low retention rates in third-level computing courses, despite continuing research into new and improved computer teaching methods, present a worrying concern. For some computing students learning programming is intimidating, giving rise to lack of confidence and anxiety. The noncognitive domain of anxiety with regard to learning computer programming is investigated in this paper and programming anxiety, a constituent component of computer anxiety, is defined. The paper describes a longitudinal research study that has been conducted, which investigates the variance of anxiety amongst undergraduate computing students, with specific emphasis upon their learning programming during their first year in higher education.      

A Design-Oriented Microprocessor Laboratory

A design-oriented microprocessor laboratory has been developed for two senior-level courses. The laboratory centers around a Motorola 6800-based microcomputer built within the Electrical Engineering Department. It was designed to provide "hands-on" programming experience but, most importantly, to allow a variety of interfacing experiments to be performed. A complete set of experiments have been developed for the laboratory. These begin with introductory programming exercises and small microcomputer operation. These are followed by experiments illustrating input-output techniques and interfacing to peripheral devices. The experiments not only reinforce the lecture material but also teach the student hardware/software tradeoffs in design.     

Avoiding Plagiarism in Contexts of Development and Change

This paper reports on an investigation into the incidence of plagiarism in the context of a new university of technology in South Africa. The findings indicate that plagiarism can take many forms, some of which are a result of dishonesty and academic misconduct, while others are related to the educational levels and cultural diversity of the faculty and student body. The paper argues that a ldquoone-size-fits-allrdquo approach to plagiarism is not likely to be effective within a context of development and change, different forms of plagiarism should be clearly identified, and different institutional responses are necessary to address these items.     

Faculty and Student Classroom Influences on Academic Dishonesty

This study examined the influence that faculty and students have on academic dishonesty. Results showed that instructors who employ more safeguards against academic dishonesty and who discuss plagiarism, collaboration, and source attribution are more likely to observe students engaging in academic dishonesty behaviors. This study also found that students are less likely to report engaging in serious plagiarism if the instructor spends time discussing plagiarism and are more likely to believe that copying sentences is a serious form of academic dishonesty if the instructor discusses source attribution. Finally, results showed that students' engagement in academic dishonesty is most influenced by whether they believe their peers are engaging in academic dishonesty. These findings suggest that instructors should talk more about their expectations for academic honesty and use safeguards that deter cheating and plagiarism. These findings also suggest that institutions should seek opportunities to have students talk with other students about the importance of academic honesty.     

Hands-on software design [real-time programming]

Reactive and time-critical software is used when safety is the issue and the margin for errors is narrow. The issues of timing, concurrency, interprocess communication, resource sharing and external device handling are very important. Graduates who understand how the software will interact with the operating system and the environment are in high demand. In an effort to provide students with such knowledge, the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has been offering real-time courses. These courses use the standard UNIX platform and Ada as the implementation language to support concurrency and software engineering practices. A dedicated real-time laboratory was also designed. The laboratory contains hardware (complete computers and interface devices) for teaching both soft and hard real-time concepts. Resources include a wide variety of hardware platforms operating different UNIX-like operating systems. The real-time laboratory supports time-critical software development with full pre-emptiveness and deterministic behavior. Using the laboratory, the students can experiment. This aids in learning real-time concepts. The experiments address such concepts as: reactive and time-critical programming, concurrency of programming tasks, multiprocessing and multithreaded applications, signals and operating system interfaces, resource contention constructs, the implementation of concurrent programs, communication protocols and reactive input/output interfaces     

A Grid Portal for an Undergraduate Parallel Programming Course

This paper describes an experience of designing and implementing a portal to support transparent remote access to supercomputing facilities to students enrolled in an undergraduate parallel programming course. As these facilities are heterogeneous, are located at different sites, and belong to different institutions, grid computing technologies have been used to overcome these issues. The result is a grid portal based on a modular and easily extensible software architecture that provides a uniform and user-friendly interface for students to work on their programming laboratory assignments.     

A Video Tape Graduate Power Engineering Program

This paper describes and evaluates an unusual continuing education program which is offered to practicing power engineers from the Engineering College at Iowa State University. This program provides credit courses from the central campus via video tape to seven different power utility companies as well as a consulting engineering firm in the state. The program permits the power engineer to take graduate courses and if interested to complete a graduate degree without returning to campus to satisfy residency requirements. This is made possible by a system of video taping of courses taught to on-campus students. The faculty is encouraged to teach via video tape with the full knowledge that providing this educational service remote from the central campus is of considerable importance to the Engineering College. This relatively new continuing education concept has grown significantly and has enjoyed considerable success. Over a six year period 38 different courses have been offered. Nine different college departments have been involved in this off-campus effort, although the largest interest of the power engineer has been in the areas of Electrical Engineering and Industrial Engineering course offerings. Historically the power industry has had little interest in university offered continuing education programming for their practicing engineers. Through this program, however, a dramatic change has taken place with regard to continuing education and the power industry in the last few years. This may be attributed to a number of factors.