eAssignment A Case for EMF

1
eAssignment A Case for EMF

• Marcel Bruch
• Christoph Bockisch
• Thorsten Schäfer
• Mira Mezini

2
Talk in a Nutshell

• Focus on features and usage of eAssignment
• Problem statement
• Computer science courses have programming
  exercises
• Cant concentrate on primary tasks
• Different workbenches (IDE, web browser, email,
  spreadsheet)
• Few secondary tasks automated
• eAssignment integrated, automated handling of
  assignments
• Easy to configure / extend (see paper for
  details)
• Suggestions how to improve Eclipse

3
Example Workflow for an Assignment

• Goal learn the use of certain API

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

4
Example Workflow for an Assignment

• Multiple tools

Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

5
Example Workflow for an Assignment
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

6
Example Workflow for an Assignment
2 projects
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

Teachers maintaintwo projectsper assignment.

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

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Example Workflow for an Assignment
2 projects
Different possibleexchange formats.
format
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

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Example Workflow for an Assignment
2 projects
repetition
format
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

Repetitive andautomatable tasks.


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2 projects
repetition
format
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

Poor integration,little automation.Can we do
better?- Yes, with eAssignment.

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

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eAssignment
2 projects
repetition
format
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

• Server based exchange
• Upload from context menu
• Download from repository view

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eAssignment
2 projects
repetition
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

• Resources have roles (sample solution, private
  test, student read-only, student read/write)
• Different publishing modes (assignment, sample
  solution, )

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eAssignment
repetition
Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

• Automatically run checks (JUnit, CheckStyle,
  Implementation Restriction Checker, )

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eAssignment

• Manage
• Courses
• Students
• Assignments

Teacher

• Create same setup as student
• Run tests
• Review code
• Document feedback
• Rate solution
• Manage the result
• Send feedback to student

• Teacher
• Download libraries
• Setup class path and environment variables
• Implement test drivers and stubs
• Implement sample solution
• Publish assignment

14
eAssignment Future Work

• Reporting
• Generate detailed reports from automatic checks
• Increase awareness of mistakes
• Cross-reviews
• Let students review student solutions
• They learn necessity for clean code
• They see and try to understand other solutions
• They get more reviews to their solutions
• Extend distribution facility

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Evaluation of Eclipse

• Why Eclipse?
• General notion of project
• Many tools already integrated
• Large community
• Shortcomings of Eclipse
• Generic data formats
• Loose type-safety
• Data unstructured
• Examples preference store, extension registry
• JFace FieldEditors only for preference store
• Suggestion
• Use EMF for generically handling typed,
  structured data
• Implemented in eAssignment

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• Questions?