1,721,014 research outputs found
Peer Assessment by Ranks
No full textPeer assessment is a teaching technique in which students assess each other's work. It can help students to learn and engage with the quality criteria of their subject, and to see their own work as others see it. However, they may have numerous anxieties about fairness, about any extra work involved, about their abilities to assess fellow students, and to be assessed by them. Twenty-one students were assigned a task to rank some designs from a previous class. They put the designs in order of value so that they only had to judge the designs in comparison to each other, and not to some imagined universal standard that they hardly know. The assignment allowed students to give their answers both formally, as a ranked order; and textually, so they could explain and justify their rankings. This mix permits automatic marking schemes to be applied, and we tested two. One is a standard, used quite commonly in multi-choice tests because it is simple. The second refines it, intending to give more accurate results for ranked questions. Results confirm this ranking task is shown to be viable. It gets over some of the problems with peer assessment, and gives students a new learning experience with its own set of advantages.</p
Is Deductive Program Verification Mature Enough to be Taught to Software Engineers?
No full textSoftware engineers working in industry seldom try to apply formal methods to solve problems. There are various reasons for this. Sometimes these reasons are understandable---the cost of using formal methods does not make economic sense in many contexts. However, formal methods are also often greeted with scepticism. Formal methods are assumed to take too much time, require tools that are too academic, or to be too mathematical to be understood by practice-oriented software engineers. We tested these assumptions by designing a small course around a framework for program verification, aimed at regular computer science students enrolled in a Master's programme. After four lectures and associated exercises, students were given a small verification task where they had to model and verify a real, non-trivial, C function in Why3. A significant majority of students managed to prove a non-trivial functional specification of this C function in the time allotted, and many also pointed out inherent flaws of this function discovered during formalization. Participants reported no major difficulties or mental hurdles in learning Why3, and considered its approach to be appropriate for selected components of safety-critical software. While formal verification tools such as Why3 still have lots of room for improvement, this experience shows that in a short amount of time, software engineers can be taught to use a program verification tool, and obtain usable results without being fully proficient in it. We further recommend that courses on formal methods should also let students explore these as techniques to be applied, instead of only focusing on the theory behind them, as we expect this to gradually lower the barrier to wider acceptance
SQL scrolls - A reusable and extensible DGBL experiment
No full textThe teaching of databases and SQL is an active research area. We contribute by presenting a reusable and extensible SQL teaching experiment which uses a game and fits the paradigm of digital game based learning (DGBL). Although DGBL is hampered partly by the difficulty of obtaining statistically significant empirical results, the research shows that it may be an effective learning method and that it is in demand. We investigate the acceptance and effectiveness of an SQL learning game and focus on two areas: student reaction to games as a vehicle for teaching, and educational effectiveness. We designed a game prototype and administered a pre-test, post-test and an acceptance survey, with seven part-time and sixteen full-time students. A statistical analysis of effect sizes revealed a moderate intervention effect for the game group (d= -0.562) and a small one for the traditional group (d= -0.234). The acceptance survey means were between 4.43 and 4.70 out of 5, which shows that the game is highly acceptable. Our experiment demonstrated positive student attitudes towards DGBL in SQL teaching and showed the game to be as effective as exercises done using a workbench. We further observed interesting differences in teaching using a game and a "natural" workbench environment and had excellent course feedback. We have released the game as open source in the hope that other researchers will replicate or contradict our findings or simply use it in teaching. We close with an outline of ongoing research
Teaching data structures through group based collaborative peer interactions
Full text linkData structures and algorithms is an important subject in Computer Science curriculum and builds upon the programming concepts learned by the students in their earlier courses. However, the abstract nature of the concepts can often be difficult for students to grasp. This problem becomes aggravated in an international setting with students from diverse academic backgrounds, resulting in some students losing interest and failing to follow along. This paper describes our novel approach to teach data structures for Computing undergraduates from 30 African countries at African Leadership College (ALC) in Mauritius in partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University, UK. The blended learning program uses a student led "flipped classroom" approach, requiring students to view lecture and supporting material online prior to engaging in on-campus seminar session with the tutor. Peer instruction is a key component of the flipped approach. In seminars, students worked on group based problem-solving activities in data structures supported by the tutor. The students devised their solutions on white boards taking ownership of the problem, became motivated to discuss their ideas freely, and to select a group solution. The group solutions were then shared with the other groups and peer reviewed, led by the tutor. This collaborative learning environment was observed to facilitate discussions, and students' contributions and performance in later assessments offered evidence of understanding of core subject concepts
Design and delivery of cloud computing syllabus for computing undergraduates
Full text linkCloud computing is a highly disruptive paradigm transforming the way we interact with technologies. Cloud platforms and services have become the predominant choice for any real-world storage and computation intensive applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), making it a must-have skill for undergraduates across many disciplines. Cloud technology, services and applications are evolving rapidly and it is challenging to design an academic syllabus that encompasses a comprehensive and up-to-date body of knowledge in an engaging way.This paper describes our approach to designing a new module to provide a broad overview of Cloud Computing and practical skills in developing solutions using services offered by a cloud platform, in this case Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Computing undergraduate students at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU), UK. We describe the rationale for the syllabus design and outline the lectures, practical activities and assessments that were developed. The practicals were designed to be executed on the AWS platform as bite-sized tasks providing hands-on learning to reinforce prior lecture content. The first syllabus delivery at GCU shows that the students performed well, found the content engaging an easy to assimilate, and had a fulfilling learning experience. The issues involved in using ‘live’ cloud platforms for teaching are also evaluated
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Enhancing student engagement through cloud computing coursework: challenges and opportunities in the time of COVID-19
Full text linkThe COVID-19 pandemic has forced universities world-wide to adjust to an online delivery model resulting in many unforeseen challenges for module delivery and student engagement. The Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) Cloud Platform Development (CPD) final year undergraduate module requires hands-on lab work and coursework, and thus call for more deliberation and interventions to maintain student engagement. The module teaching material created at GCU is also taught at the African Leadership College (ALC), Mauritius using a flipped classroom model. However, for the current academic year, the ALC campus was closed, with the enrolled students spread over many countries and time zones in Africa, resulting in a compounding of the challenges for maintaining student engagement. In this study we describe the approaches and techniques employed at increasing the students’ engagement for the CPD coursework
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
A sports day for programming
Full text linkThis paper introduces a sports day for programming, a one-day workshop, that includes ideation, design, implementation, peer review, and a Eurovision style finale. It is a summative assessment introduced to an introductory programming course for the degree Creative Technology.While the course includes both formative and summative assessment in tutorials as is common programming courses, both students and teaching team felt that students lacked programming experience to be properly prepared for their final project. Rather than adding another assessment or projects, we developed the sports day. The term sports day stresses the competitive element, the team aspect, and also that it includes different disciplines, namely ideation, design, implementation, code review and presentation.This paper explains how this setup was developed to suit the educational philosophy of the degree, how it is implemented, and reports on experiences and evaluations of this annual event
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