An Experience-Driven Pedagogy for the Instruction of Software Testing in Computer Science

In the realm of computer programming, the experience of writing a program is used to reinforce concepts and evaluate ability. This research uses three case studies to evaluate the introduction of testing through Kolb's Experiential Learning Model (ELM). We then analyze the impact of those testing experiences to determine methods for improving future courses. The first testing experience that students encounter are unit test reports in their early courses. This course demonstrates that automating and improving feedback can provide more ELM iterations. The JUnit Generation (JUG) tool also provided a positive experience for the instructor by reducing the overall workload. Later, undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to work together in a multi-role Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) course. The interactions use usability analysis techniques with graduate students as usability experts and undergraduate students as design engineers. Students get experience testing the user experience of their product prototypes using methods varying from heuristic analysis to user testing. From this course, we learned the importance of the instructors role in the ELM. As more roles were added to the HCI course, a desire arose to provide more complete, quality assured software. This inspired the addition of unit testing experiences to the course. However, we learned that significant preparations must be made to apply the ELM when students are resistant. The research presented through these courses was driven by the recognition of a need for testing in a Computer Science curriculum. Our understanding of the ELM suggests the need for student experience when being introduced to testing concepts. We learned that experiential learning, when appropriately implemented, can provide benefits to the Computer Science classroom. When examined together, these course-based research projects provided insight into building strong testing practices into a curriculum.

Integrated program debugging, verification, and optimization using abstract interpretation (and the Ciao system preprocessor)

The technique of Abstract Interpretation has allowed the development of very sophisticated global program analyses which are at the same time provably correct and practical. We present in a tutorial fashion a novel program development framework which uses abstract interpretation as a fundamental tool. The framework uses modular, incremental abstract interpretation to obtain information about the program. This information is used to validate programs, to detect bugs with respect to partial specifications written using assertions (in the program itself and/or in system libraries), to generate and simplify run-time tests, and to perform high-level program transformations such as multiple abstract specialization, parallelization, and resource usage control, all in a provably correct way. In the case of validation and debugging, the assertions can refer to a variety of program points such as procedure entry, procedure exit, points within procedures, or global computations. The system can reason with much richer information than, for example, traditional types. This includes data structure shape (including pointer sharing), bounds on data structure sizes, and other operational variable instantiation properties, as well as procedure-level properties such as determinacy, termination, nonfailure, and bounds on resource consumption (time or space cost). CiaoPP, the preprocessor of the Ciao multi-paradigm programming system, which implements the described functionality, will be used to illustrate the fundamental ideas.

Performance and Professional Skills in an Online Java Programming Course for Engineering Students

The main purpose of this work is to describe the case of an online Java Programming course for engineering students to learn computer programming and to practice other non-technicalabilities: online training, self-assessment, teamwork and use of foreign languages. It is important that students develop confidence and competence in these skills, which will be required later in their professional tasks and/or in other engineering courses (life-long learning). Furthermore, this paper presents the pedagogical methodology, the results drawn from this experience and an objective performance comparison with another conventional (face-to-face) Java course.

A computer research program for solving the reaction rate equations in the E ionospheric region /

Ionospheric Physics Laboratory Project 8653.

New Florencia : a case study for the 1970 censuses of population and housing.

" ... Through the financial assistance of the AID" (U.S. Agency for International Development) ISP (International Statistical Programs) of the Bureau of the Census.

Computer program for incentives (a description of a computer program that generates incentive contracting visibility tools), May 1970.

Mode of access: Internet.

A programming language for the parallel processing of pictures /

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1966.

EOL programming examples: a primer,

"Supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant no. GP-4636."

String processing on a parallel computer /

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Illinois.

PATTIE : an automated tutor for top-down programming /

Vita.

User programming specifications for the PDP8/360 communications system,

"C00-1469-0114"

An Implicit enumeration program for zero-one integer programming,

Bibliography: p. 41-42.

Computer program for designing optimal networks with MOS gates,

Thesis-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A code for zero-one integer linear programming by implicit enumeration, a programming manual for ILLIP.

Issued also as thesis (M.S.) University of Illinois.

The design, implementation, and analysis of a computer-assisted instruction system on a mini-computer,

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.