Advanced e-Learning techniques for teaching C-programming and selected features of Java and C++ Proposed by Dr. Chittaranjan Mandal, Associate Professor, Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India

Contents of talk Statement of targets Presentation of motivation Presentation of background Statement of objectives Pedagogic mechanism envisaged Consideration of important issues About algorithm animation About automatic evaluation Timetable Budget

Target group and benefits Students in first course of programming – Web based interface to follow working of programs – An automated evaluation system for evaluating assignment submissions with quick response time Teachers – Aid to teaching, both online and offline – Aid to evaluation that scales well with student numbers

Motivations 4  Very large cohorts of students in almost all large educational institutions or universities across the world, specifically in India ■ Intake of undergraduates is around ■ In laboratories, each student has to submit about 9 to 12 assignments and up to 3 laboratory based tests. ■ That amounts to nearly 15,000 submissions per semester.  Due to increase in number seats in the government institutions, the situation will become ever worse  Without automation, the instructor would be busy most of the time in testing and grading work at the expense of time that could be spent interacting with students ■ Quality of TA support in India still developing ■ Heavy involvement of faculty members required for quality control  Individual attention is scarce and should be of high value

Background  In 2002, a course management system was developed (in-house) to handle assignment display, assignment submission, assignment marking, etc.  In 2004, an elementary web based algorithm animation system was developed for teaching programming (PDS)  In 2006, a basic system for automatic evaluation of C programs was developed  Related publications have also been made in the reputed international journals and conferences  The aim of this project is to consolidate those techniques for teaching programming to a large and geographically diverse gathering of students. 5

Objectives  Deployment of program animation techniques to trace running of programs over the web  Development of a versatile automated evaluation techniques for C programs  Development of meta marking for graded performance evaluation  Development of library of graded problems to support stepwise learning  Extension to Java and C++ to cover basic object oriented features 6

Basic pedagogic mechanisms  Algorithm animation for computer aided interactive self tutoring  Incorporation of online testing into algorithm animation system  Library based approach for animation examples  Instructors may also add or modify content  Dissemination of assignments through WBCM  Automatic evaluation integrated with WBCM for interactive submission and feedback  Controlled feedback level so that automatic evaluation can be used differentially for regular class assignments and tests

Important issues in the proposed research  Addressing a wide spectrum of aspects of evaluation including testing, grading and feedback towards ensuring uniformity and quality  Ease-of-use for the instructors and students  Automatic evaluation should be as close to human evaluation as possible, including part marking for individual aspects of problems  Online evaluation and fast feedback to students for iterative improvement  Meta evaluation techniques monitor how efficiently the student is progressing with the assignment 8

Algorithm animation  Students can trace execution of programs  Web interface, special expertise not needed  Visual aid to understanding program execution and modification of data structures  Library of animations  Instructor can make additions or modifications  Incorporate meta evaluation with algorithm animation to aid fine grained assessment 9

Automatic evaluation  Aimed at exercising functions written by students  Assignments need tailoring for automatic evaluation  Generally avoid handling of textual output because of high variability, but ok for simple cases  Library of assignments for automatic evaluation  Instructor can make additions/modifications  Web based interface to help instructor to develop assignment statements suitable for automatic evaluation 10

11 Timetable and Work Plan

12 Total Budget

13 Targeted deliverables  Development of open-source software packages based on the work done  Web-based methods for easy access  Publications in leading conferences in this area and reputed journals.  Dissertations of the students working in this group

Related Publications Book Chapters: Mandal, A., Mandal, C., Reade, C. (2009), A System for Automatic Evaluation of `C' Programs - features and interfaces, in Solutions and Innovations in Web-Based Technologies for Augmented Learning: Improved Platforms, Tools and Applications by Nikos Karacapilidis (Ed.), Feb 2009, Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference (ISBN: ). Mandal, A., Mandal, C., Reade, C. (2007), A System for Automatic Evaluation of Programs for Correctness and Performance, in J. Filipe, J. Cordeiro, and V. Pedrosa (Eds.), Web Information Systems and Technologies I, pp , Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP), Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg. Journals:  A System for Automatic Evaluation of `C' Programs - features and interfaces, International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies (IJWLTT), pp 24-39, vol. 2, No. 4, 2007; Amit Mandal, C Mandal, Chris Reade.  Web-based Course management and Web Services, Electronic Journal of e-Learning, pp , vol. 2, No. 1, 2004; C Mandal, Vijaya Luxmi Sinha, Chris Reade.

Related Publications Conferences:  Animating Algorithms over the Web Proc. of WEBIST 2006, Setúbal, Portugal, pp , Apr 11-13, 2006, Chittaranjan Mandal, Chris Reade, ISBN  A System for Automatic Evaluation of Programs for Correctness and Performance Proc. of WEBIST 2006, Setúbal, Portugal, pp , Apr 11-13, 2006, Amit Kumar Mandal, Chittaranjan Mandal, Chris Reade, ISBN  A Technique for Algorithm Animation Over the Web, Proc. of International Conference on Emerging Applications of IT, Elsevier, Science City, Calcutta, pp , Feb 10-11, 2006, Chittaranjan Mandal, Chris Reade.  Web-based Automatic Evaluation System, Proc. of the 3rd European Conference on eLearning, Paris, France, pp , November 2004, C Mandal, V L Sinha, C M P Reade.  Web-Based Course Management Tool, Proc. of the 2nd European Conference on e-Learning, Nov 6- 7, Glasgow, UK, pp , 2003, C. Mandal, V. L. Sinha, C. M. P. Reade.

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