Automatizace testování architektury studentských úloh

The freshmen programming courses at the University of Economics in Prague offer a unique approach to learning the art of programming and software engineering. The introductory courses follow the Architecture First methodology that gives students the opportunity to learn programming from the top down, without being constrained by the specifics and syntax of any one programming language. It teaches the thought processes needed to build programs, allowing the student to absorb the big ideas of computer programming. The average number of freshmen at the faculty of Informatics and Statistics is around seven hundred students. The task of correcting programming assignment and preparing appropriate feedback would be a mammoth undertaking for teaching staff in most university settings worldwide that offer similar computing degrees. It is therefore quite often the case that the faculty provisions some sort of automated testing technology that can handle the volume and provide both the teaching staff and the students with the tools needed to manage the assignments. These automated tools or systems have been, and continue to be, the subject of many research topics across the world and continue to evolve as new technologies and teaching methods evolve. This study first introduces the theoretical background of automated assessment and grading tools and systems and then provides an analysis of the fields current state. Taking that as input to the next phase, the study uses that information to then design and implement a custom-built system that would enable the automated testing of the structure and other aspects of student assignments. The main goal for the resulting system is to provide an intuitive and convenient way of declaring what needs to be tested for a given assignment and then providing the mechanism to run those tests automatically. The resulting system, DynoGrader, dynamically validates student assignments at runtime using Java runtime annotation processing mechanisms and Java Reflection API.