Collaboration Versus Cheating

We outline how we detected programming plagiarism in an introductory online course for a master's of science in computer science program, how we achieved a statistically significant reduction in programming plagiarism by combining a clear explanation of university and class policy on academic honesty reinforced with a short but formal assessment, and how we evaluated plagiarism rates before SIGand after implementing our policy and assessment.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, 5 tables, SIGCSE 201

Teaching and learning in live online classrooms

Online presence of information and services is pervasive. Teaching and learning are no exception. Courseware management systems play an important role in enhancing instructional delivery for either traditional day, full-time students or non-traditional evening, party-time adult learners enrolled in online programs. While online course management tools are with no doubt practical, they limit, however, live or synchronous communication to chat rooms, whose discourse has little in common with face-to-face class communication. A more recent trend in online teaching and learning is the adoption and integration of web conferencing tools to enable live online classrooms and recreate the ethos of traditional face-to-face sessions. In this paper we present the experience we have had with the adoption of the LearnLinc® web conferencing tool, an iLinc Communications, Inc. product. We have coupled LearnLinc with Blackboard®, for the online and hybrid computer science courses we offered in the past academic year in the evening undergraduate and graduate computer science programs at Rivier College. Twelve courses, enrolling over 150 students, have used the synchronous online teaching capabilities of LearnLinc. Students who took courses in the online or hybrid format could experience a comparable level of interaction, participation, and collaboration as in traditional classes. We solicited student feedback by administering a student survey to over 100 students. The 55% response rate produced the data for this paper\u27s study. We report on the study\u27s findings and show students\u27 rankings of evaluation criteria applied to hybrid and online instructional formats, with or without a web conferencing tool. Our analysis shows that students ranked favorably LearnLinc live sessions added to Blackboard-only online classes. In addition, how they learned in live online classrooms was found to be the closest to the hybrid class experience with regard to teaching practices they perceived as most important to them, such as seeking instructor\u27s assistance, managing time on task, and exercising problem solving skills

TLAD 2010 Proceedings:8th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the eighth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2010), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2010 - the 27th International Information Systems Conference. TLAD 2010 is held on the 28th June at the beautiful Dudhope Castle at the Abertay University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.This year, the workshop includes an invited talk given by Richard Cooper (of the University of Glasgow) who will present a discussion and some results from the Database Disciplinary Commons which was held in the UK over the academic year. Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will also present seven peer reviewed papers, and six refereed poster papers. Of the seven presented papers, three will be presented as full papers and four as short papers. These papers and posters cover a number of themes, including: approaches to teaching databases, e.g. group centered and problem based learning; use of novel case studies, e.g. forensics and XML data; techniques and approaches for improving teaching and student learning processes; assessment techniques, e.g. peer review; methods for improving students abilities to develop database queries and develop E-R diagrams; and e-learning platforms for supporting teaching and learning

TLAD 2010 Proceedings:8th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the eighth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2010), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2010 - the 27th International Information Systems Conference. TLAD 2010 is held on the 28th June at the beautiful Dudhope Castle at the Abertay University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.This year, the workshop includes an invited talk given by Richard Cooper (of the University of Glasgow) who will present a discussion and some results from the Database Disciplinary Commons which was held in the UK over the academic year. Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will also present seven peer reviewed papers, and six refereed poster papers. Of the seven presented papers, three will be presented as full papers and four as short papers. These papers and posters cover a number of themes, including: approaches to teaching databases, e.g. group centered and problem based learning; use of novel case studies, e.g. forensics and XML data; techniques and approaches for improving teaching and student learning processes; assessment techniques, e.g. peer review; methods for improving students abilities to develop database queries and develop E-R diagrams; and e-learning platforms for supporting teaching and learning

Experimenting with Realism in Software Engineering Team Projects: An Experience Report

Over Several years, we observed that our students were sceptical of Software Engineering practices, because we did not convey the experience and demands of production quality software development. Assessment focused on features delivered, rather than imposing responsibility for longer term `technical debt'. Academics acting as 'uncertain' customers were rejected as malevolent and implausible. Student teams composed of novices lacked the benefits of leadership provided by more experienced engineers. To address these shortcomings, real customers were introduced, exposing students to real requirements uncertainty. Flipped classroom teaching was adopted, giving teams one day each week to work on their project in a redesigned laboratory. Software process and quality were emphasised in the course assessment, imposing technical debt. Finally, we introduced a leadership course for senior students, who acted as mentors to the project team students. This paper reports on the experience of these changes, from the perspective of different stakeholders

Contemporary developments in teaching and learning introductory programming: Towards a research proposal

The teaching and learning of introductory programming in tertiary institutions is problematic. Failure rates are high and the inability of students to complete small programming tasks at the completion of introductory units is not unusual. The literature on teaching programming contains many examples of changes in teaching strategies and curricula that have been implemented in an effort to reduce failure rates. This paper analyses contemporary research into the area, and summarises developments in the teaching of introductory programming. It also focuses on areas for future research which will potentially lead to improvements in both the teaching and learning of introductory programming. A graphical representation of the issues from the literature that are covered in the document is provided in the introduction

Teaching Software Development to Non-Software Engineering Students

This paper argues that although the object-oriented programming (OOP) paradigm is appropriate for students taking programming modules on Higher Education (HE) software engineering course, this paradigm is not as relevant for students from other courses who study programming modules. It is also asserts that adopting another paradigm when teaching programming to non-software engineering students need not prevent the encouragement of good software engineering practices The paper discusses the software development model, procedures, techniques and programming language that the author requires non-software engineering students to employ when developing their software. This discussion also includes consideration of implementation issues in an educational context. The paper concludes that his alternative approach has been successfully implemented, that it requires the student to adopt a rigorous approach to development and that it encourages best software engineering practices. The conclusions also note that delivering this alternative offers the opportunity to include good educational practice, such as role-play

Female Under-Representation in Computing Education and Industry - A Survey of Issues and Interventions

This survey paper examines the issue of female under-representation in computing education and industry, which has been shown from empirical studies to be a problem for over two decades. While various measures and intervention strategies have been implemented to increase the interest of girls in computing education and industry, the level of success has been discouraging. The primary contribution of this paper is to provide an analysis of the extensive research work in this area. It outlines the progressive decline in female representation in computing education. It also presents the key arguments that attempt to explain the decline and intervention strategies. We conclude that there is a need to further explore strategies that will encourage young female learners to interact more with computer educational games

Restart: The Resurgence of Computer Science in UK Schools

Computer science in UK schools is undergoing a remarkable transformation. While the changes are not consistent across each of the four devolved nations of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), there are developments in each that are moving the subject to become mandatory for all pupils from age 5 onwards. In this article, we detail how computer science declined in the UK, and the developments that led to its revitalisation: a mixture of industry and interest group lobbying, with a particular focus on the value of the subject to all school pupils, not just those who would study it at degree level. This rapid growth in the subject is not without issues, however: there remain significant forthcoming challenges with its delivery, especially surrounding the issue of training sufficient numbers of teachers. We describe a national network of teaching excellence which is being set up to combat this problem, and look at the other challenges that lie ahead