GitSEED: A Git-backed Automated Assessment Tool for Software Engineering and Programming Education

TL;DR

This paper introduces GitSEED, a language-agnostic automated assessment tool designed for Programming Education and Software Engineering (SE) and backed by GitLab, and assesses its efficacy via comprehensive user evaluation, examining the impact of feedback mechanisms and features on student learning outcomes.

Abstract

Due to the substantial number of enrollments in programming courses, a key challenge is delivering personalized feedback to students. The nature of this feedback varies significantly, contingent on the subject and the chosen evaluation method. However, tailoring current Automated Assessment Tools (AATs) to integrate other program analysis tools is not straightforward. Moreover, AATs usually support only specific programming languages, providing feedback exclusively through dedicated websites based on test suites. This paper introduces GitSEED, a language-agnostic automated assessment tool designed for Programming Education and Software Engineering (SE) and backed by GitLab. The students interact with GitSEED through GitLab. Using GitSEED, students in Computer Science (CS) and SE can master the fundamentals of git while receiving personalized feedback on their programming assignments and projects. Furthermore, faculty members can easily tailor GitSEED's pipeline by integrating various code evaluation tools (e.g., memory leak detection, fault localization, program repair, etc.) to offer personalized feedback that aligns with the needs of each CS/SE course. Our experiments assess GitSEED's efficacy via comprehensive user evaluation, examining the impact of feedback mechanisms and features on student learning outcomes. Findings reveal positive correlations between GitSEED usage and student engagement.

Figures (2)

• Figure 1: The overview of GitSEED.
• Figure 2: Workflow of GitSEED for processing a new project submission from group X in CS101.