Exercise Solution Check Specification Language for Interactive Programming Learning Environments

Swacha, Jakub

doi:10.4230/OASIcs.SLATE.2017.6

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OASIcs.SLATE.2017.6.pdf

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DOI: 10.4230/OASIcs.SLATE.2017.6
URN: urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-79413

Author Details

Jakub Swacha

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Jakub Swacha. Exercise Solution Check Specification Language for Interactive Programming Learning Environments. In 6th Symposium on Languages, Applications and Technologies (SLATE 2017). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 56, pp. 6:1-6:8, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2017)
https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.SLATE.2017.6

Abstract

Automatic checking of the correctness of students' solutions of programming exercises for generating appropriate feedback is a necessary component of interactive programming learning environments. Although there are multiple ways of specifying such a check, ranging from mere string patterns to code written in general-purpose programming language, they all have their deficiencies, with the check specification being too verbose, too complicated, difficult to reuse, or very limited in its expressive capabilities. In this paper, a new language designed especially for this purpose is described. It provides both extension and replacement for RegEx-based pattern specification so that checks typical for programming exercise verification can be expressed in a concise and highly-readable manner.

Keywords

automatic programming exercise solution verification
source code pattern specification
RegEx extension
RegEx alternative

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