automatically graded programming assignments

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Programming assignments, learner help center dec 5, 2022 • knowledge, article details.

Programming assignments require you to write and run a computer program to solve a problem.

Some programming assignments count toward your final course grade, while others are just for practice.

Sections of a programming assignment

Programming assignments include both assignment instructions and assignment parts.

Assignment instructions:

• Explain the assignment.
• May include a link to a downloadable starter package that includes starter code, detailed guidelines, and other resources.

Assignment parts:

• Are similar to individual questions within a quiz.
• Are each a single coding task.
• Are each worth a certain number of points toward the overall assignment score.
• Can be completed and submitted all at once, or one at a time.

Programming assignment grades

Programming assignments are graded automatically.

Some are graded using a built-in grading algorithm that compares your program's output to a value specified by your instructor. Others are graded using a custom grading algorithm created by your instructor.

If a programming assignment uses built-in grading:

• Your code will run locally on your computer, and the output will be sent to Coursera's servers.
• Your grade will be based on comparison against numeric or regular expression grading logic.
• You'll get your grade a few seconds after submitting.

If a programming assignment uses custom grading:

• Your code will be run on Coursera's servers.
• Your grade will be based on custom logic provided by your instructor.
• You'll get your grade within an hour of submitting.
• You'll need to refresh the page to see your grade.

Submit a programming assignment

To submit a programming assignment:

• Open the assignment page for the assignment you want to submit.
• Read the assignment instructions and download any starter files.
• Finish the coding tasks in your local coding environment. Check the starter files and instructions when you need to.
• If the assignment uses script submission , submit your assignment by running the submission script in your local coding environment and entering the submission token.
• If the assignment uses web submission , upload your files using the instructions on your screen.

Test a programming assignment

Some programming assignments let you test them before you submit them to get feedback on whether they run. You won't get grades or feedback from the instructor until you submit the assignment.

Edit or resubmit a programming assignment

You can resubmit a programming assignment if you don't pass on the first attempt or want to improve your score. You might have to wait a certain amount of time between attempts.

To resubmit a programming assignment, follow the same steps for submitting one. If your assignment uses script submission, you'll need to select the Generate new token option on the assignment page and use the new submission token.

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• Automatically Grading with Web-CAT

Automatically Grading Programming Assignments with Web-CAT

Web-CAT is the most widely used automated grading platform in the world, and is best known for allowing instructors to grade students based on how well they test their own code.

About This Tutorial

This tutorial introduces participants to using Web-CAT, an open-source automated grading system. Web-CAT is customizable and extensible, allowing it to support a wide variety of programming languages and assessment strategies. Web-CAT is most well-known as the system that “grades students on how well they test their own code,” with experimental evidence that it offers greater learning benefits than more traditional output-comparison grading. Participants will learn how to set up and configure assignments, manage multiple sections, and allow graders to manually grade for design.

Presentation: Automatically Grading Programming Assignments with Web-CAT (PDF, 6 pp.)

Download a single zip file containing all of the following examples, or view examples individually in your web browser.

The examples shown in the tutorial:

Example 1: DvrRecording :

• DvrRecording.java
• DvrRecordingTest.java

Example 2: Calculator

• Calculator.java
• CalculatorReferenceTest.java

Example 3: HelloWorld : Testing main programs, stdi/o, etc.

• HelloWorld1.java
• HelloWorld1Test.java
• HelloWorld2.java
• HelloWorld2Test.java
• HelloWorld3.java
• HelloWorld3Test.java
• RandomNumbers.java
• RandomNumbersTest.java

Example 4: PushCounter : Testing Swing GUI applications using LIFT.

• PushCounter.java
• PushCounterTest.java
• PushCounterPanel.java
• PushCounterPanelTest.java

For More Information

roster.csv : The simple course roster used as an example.

checkstyle-None.xml and pmd-None.xml : The configuration files used to disable (turn off) Checkstyle and/or PMD static analysis checks.

loose-checkstyle.xml : An alternative Checkstyle rule configuration that is more forgiving than the default.

webcat-eclipse-submitter-1.4.3.zip : The Web-CAT submission plug-in for Eclipse.

student.jar : JUnit support library used by Web-CAT and many universities, including student.TestCase , student.GUITestCase , LIFT, and more.

Source code for student.jar and LIFT is open-source, available from the Web-CAT project on SourceForge .

JUnit.org has more information on how to use JUnit.

Documentation for the asserts in JUnit: http://www.junit.org/apidocs/org/junit/Assert.html

Testing GUI Programs is a Prezi presentation that gives a good introduction to LIFT and how it is used.

The LIFT website provides more details on LIFT, including links to two sigcse papers, downloads, examples, and discussion forums.

Automatic Grading of Programming Assignments: An Approach Based on Formal Semantics

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International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education

AIED 2022: Artificial Intelligence in Education. Posters and Late Breaking Results, Workshops and Tutorials, Industry and Innovation Tracks, Practitioners’ and Doctoral Consortium pp 35–40 Cite as

Grading Programming Assignments with an Automated Grading and Feedback Assistant

• Marcus Messer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5915-9153 11  
• Conference paper
• First Online: 26 July 2022

3515 Accesses

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13356))

Over the last few years, Computer Science class sizes have increased, resulting in a higher grading workload. Universities often use multiple graders to quickly deliver the grades and associated feedback to manage this workload. While using multiple graders enables the required turnaround times to be achieved, it can come at the cost of consistency and feedback quality. Partially automating the process of grading and feedback could help solve these issues. This project will look into methods to assist in grading and feedback partially subjective elements of programming assignments, such as readability, maintainability, and documentation, to increase the marker’s amount of time to write meaningful feedback. We will investigate machine learning and natural language processing methods to improve grade uniformity and feedback quality in these areas. Furthermore, we will investigate how using these tools may allow instructors to include open-ended requirements that challenge students to use their ideas for possible features in their assignments.

• Automated grading
• Computer science education

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checkstyle. http://checkstyle.sourceforge.io/ . Accessed 14 May 2022

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Marcus Messer

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Ateneo De Manila University, Quezon, Philippines

Maria Mercedes Rodrigo

Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

Noburu Matsuda

Durham University, Durham, UK

Alexandra I. Cristea

University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Vania Dimitrova

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Messer, M. (2022). Grading Programming Assignments with an Automated Grading and Feedback Assistant. In: Rodrigo, M.M., Matsuda, N., Cristea, A.I., Dimitrova, V. (eds) Artificial Intelligence in Education. Posters and Late Breaking Results, Workshops and Tutorials, Industry and Innovation Tracks, Practitioners’ and Doctoral Consortium. AIED 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13356. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11647-6_6

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Published : 26 July 2022

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