AAFAS

Automatic Assessment and Feedback on Algorithm Simulation

Software Visualization (SV) is an active research field in software engineering that uses graphics and animation to illustrate different aspects of software. SV systems can be utilized in program development, research, and teaching to help programmers and learners understand the structure, abstract and concrete execution as well as the evolution of software.

This research project concentrates on improving the use of interactive software visualization methods and tools as an aid for learning and exploring data structures and algorithms in several contexts. We have previously introduced a novel method for specifying algorithm animations that we call visual algorithm simulation. In this activity, the user is able to build and modify real data structures through GUI operations. He can simulate the changes that a real algorithm would do by using context sensitive drag & drop operations on the screen. The system maintains the actual underlying data structures as well as their visual representations, and interprets the meaning of the operations between these two layers. The framework provides algorithm animation and simulation facilities for a set of ready made data structures and algorithms, which so far have been successfully applied in educational context to teach these core computer science topics.

However, several open research topics remain and are currently being studied in our laboratory by the Software Visualization Group. These include generalization of algorithm simulation exercises, generating various advanced forms of feedback for the user, recovery from an erroneous state of a data structure, and testing algorithms in terms of algorithm simulation. The outcome of this research will provide an application framework for the development of novel algorithm simulation prototypes, as well as ready-made applications tested in real use. We will apply the results in our TRAKLA2 learning environment that has been in production use in three different institutions of higher education with over 1000 students since 2003.

This research project is funded by Academy of Finland (2005-2008).