A data type to exploit online data sources

Abstract

Recent work in developing student assignments has involved making use of online data resources to make them more interesting and to give students real world information to interact with in some manner. While definitely a practical approach, the work that has been done so far is either for "CS0" courses targeted at non-majors, often using tools like Microsoft Excel, or courses that require a level of skill at programming from the students. Additionally, existing tools are specific to a particular structure of the data (CSV, XML, and others). As a result, these constraints make on-line real-world data sets difficult to use in typical introductory programming courses for majors. Objects-first approaches to teaching introductory programming advocate the use of objects early on. Consequently, students are able to take advantage of using data types early on. We have created an interface that allows students to access real-world data sets from online (or local) sources in a uniform fashion. This abstraction allows students with minimal programming experience to load, process, and manipulate external data sets in a variety of formats. We also developed a lab assignment where students accessed an online CSV data source to demonstrate feasibility and to gain experience with classroom use of this approach.