Programming assignments in virtual learning environments: developments and opportunities for engineering education

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present observations on automatic and semi-automatic assessment for programming assignments used in different e-learning contexts. Teaching of programming is an important part of different Informatics Engineering, Computer Science or Informatics, Computing, Information Technology and Communication courses in Universities and high schools. Students taking these courses have to demonstrate competences in problem solving and programming by creating working programs. Checking program validity is usually based on testing a program on diverse test cases. Testing for batch-type problems involves creating a set of input data cases, running a program submitted by a contestant with those input cases, analysing obtained outputs, etc. Assessment of programming assignments is as complex as testing of software systems. A lot of automatic assessment systems for programming assignments have been created to support teachers in submission assessment. However the problem of balance between the quality and the speed of assessment for programming assignments is important. Authors conducted the research on the possibilities of advanced semi-automatic approach in assessment, which can be used as compromise between manual and automatic assessment. A semi-automatic testing environment for evaluating programming assignments is developed, and the practical use of this system in Lithuania’s optional programming maturity examination is presented. Presented research is useful for evaluating results of engineering education in general, and informatics/computer engineering education particularly.