Lessons from on-line programming examinations

Abstract

We have been using a combination of conventional and on-line programming examinations for the past 3 years in our first year programming courses. We plan to continue using on-line components because of the positive feedback from both students and faculty. We describe the operational and pedagogical lessons we have learned, illustrating problems encountered and our solutions, in the hope that others considering on-line examinations may also benefit from our experiences.

On-line programming examinations using Web to teach

“…This is entirely consistent with our experience and that of three years of experience reported by Woit and Mason [1998]. These authors also report that on-line exams increase the testability of some desirable skills (active debugging for example) while decrease others (manual walkthroughs).…”

Ironcode

“…Bowles used drills and programming quizzes to test programming skills [4]. More recently though, online examinations have been used in both closed and open environments [5,7,8,12]. We often evaluate student progress in courses using tests or drills [2,1,3,9,10].…”

Testing skills and knowledge

“…Some lab finals at other schools are administered in a "clean" environment, where student access to the outside world is cut off and students are given special logins [2,3]. Our environment does not allow us to do this; however, we believe that we manage to achieve sufficient security in our procedures.…”