Online Feedback For Novice Programmers

The Environment for Learning to Program (ELP) is a web-based, fill-in-the-gaps programming tool, aimed at assisting Information Technology students to program successfully at an early stage of their learning. Programming is acknowledged to be a complex and difficult learning activity so the ELP was designed to provide a gentle introduction without the hassle of installation, compilation and run-time environment issues confronting novice programmers. ELP is accessed through web pages on the OLT and is used by students in both undergraduate and postgraduate units. Students generally enjoy using the ELP but have expressed the need for appropriate and timely feedback from their teachers so that they can make early progress and don't spend too much time on simple errors. A new and important capability is being trialled in the latest version of the ELP - the ELP Feedback Mechanism (ELP-FM). Students can now annotate their ELP exercises in situ, in order to request context-specific help from a teacher. Student queries (annotated student exercise attempts) are saved in a database and regularly accessed by a duty tutor who can in turn annotate the student's work with appropriate assistance and feedback. All of this feedback activity is web-based and access is provided for students and tutors via the OLT. This paper will briefly describe how ELP-FM works and will report on recent trials in ITB610 (undergraduate) and ITN600 (postgraduate).