Data Structures Course Research Articles

Experiences incorporating Java into the introductory sequence

This paper describes a restructuring of our introductory sequence that resulted in the adoption of Java in our data structures course. Our motivation and plans are discussed, and our experiences - ...

Integrating an online compiler and a plagiarism detection tool into the Moodle distance education system for easy assessment of programming assignments

AbstractIn this study, an online compiler and a source code plagiarism detection tool have been included into the Moodle based distance education system of our Computer Engineering department. For this purpose Moodle system has been extended with the GCC compiler, and the Moss source code plagiarism detection tool. We observed that using the online compiler and the plagiarism detection tool reduces time and effort needed for the assessment of the programming assignments; prevents our students from plagiarism; and increases their success in their programming based Data Structures course. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 23:363–373, 2015; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21606

Team-based learning in a data structures course

This paper discusses the author's experience using team-based learning in a Data Structures course. Outside of class, students were expected to read relevant portions of the text book to prepare for class time. Student comprehension of the book material was assessed through quizzes that could be taken online through the university's course management system. During class time, students completed assignments and laboratory activities in teams that helped to strengthen their understanding of the material. At the end of the course students completed an Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved questionnaire. Analysis of the completed questionnaires suggests high student satisfaction with the author's team-based learning approach to Data Structures.

Intervention Strategies for the Improvement of Students’ Academic Performance in Data Structure Course

The study is intended to recommend intervention strategies which can be used in teaching Data Structure course effectively to undergraduate program in the field of computing and information technology. Descriptive method, formal assessment which is the actual grades of the students, and informal interviews among instructors were utilized in the study. The formal assessment results revealed that 39% of students in the course have poor academic performance in the course. This concluded that there is a need for intervention strategies which requires planning and implementation to strengthen the motivation of the students to study, boost their academic performance, and uplift the quality of education in the area of computing and information technology

Effectiveness of Combining Algorithm and Program Animation: A Case Study with Data Structure Course

Data Structure is an important and mandatory course in Computer Science and Information Technology curricula. The topics of the course require detailed view of the algorithm behavior with the implementation part by a programming language. This paper introduces a visualized learning environment and assesses the effectiveness of using this system in order to enhance the education in computer science and information technology concerning data structure course. Whether the use of the system will produce remarkable enough affects to encourage the developers to enhance such systems. The system uses embedded visualizer rather than external visualizer to produce the animation. The significant result of the experiment indicates that combining Algorithm and Program Animation is an effective way to enhance students' performance.

공학교육 내실화를 위한 교과목 포트폴리오 사례 연구

최근 대학의 공학교육에서 학생 포트폴리오가 자기주도적 수행평가로 널리 활용되고 있다. 특히 여러 대학의 공학교육혁신센터와 한국공학인증원의 포트폴리오 경진대회를 개최하면서 많은 학생이 대학 전 과정의 수행실적을 담은 학생 포트폴리오에 참여하고 있다. 그러나 공학교육에서 캡스톤디자인 관련 과목을 제외한 정규 교과목에 교과목 포트폴리오를 적용하는 사례는 그리 많지 않은 것이 현실이다. 포트폴리오는 학습 관련 자료의 조직적인 수집과 비판적인 성찰의 기회를 주는 시스템이라 할 수 있다. 본 논문은 이러한 연구 배경으로 교과목 포트폴리오를 공학교육의 일반 정규 강좌인 2013년 1학기 자료구조 교과목에 적용한 사례 연구이다. 교과목 포트폴리오를 정규 교과목에 적용한 결과 교과목 포트폴리오는 학습에 효과적이었으며, 학습자는 학습의 탐구과정을 통하여 자기주도적인 학습능력을 키우고 학습과정에서도 자기 성찰로 학습과정을 체계적으로 관리할 수 있다고 판단된다. Recently student portfolio is widely used as an evaluation method for self-directed performance in engineering education of the university. Especially, as many of the Innovation Centers for Engineering Education and ABEEK held student portfolio competitions, a lot of students in engineering college participate in student portfolio includes the contents and careers of the entire process of university. However, except for courses related to capstone design, there are few regular courses applied to Learning Portfolio in engineering education. Through using Learning Portfolio in courses, students take opportunities of organized collection of learning contents and critical reflection. Under these background study, the regular course in engineering education is may be appropriate for using Learing Portfolio in lecture. In this paper, we present the case study for the Data Structure course opened in the first semester of 2013 which is organized as a Learning Portfolio. According to the results of applying Learning Portfolio to the regular course, it turns out that learners can develope self-directed learning ability in exploring the learning process, and manage a learning process systematically through self-reflection in learning process.

Research on Reform and Practice in Bilingual Teaching for Curriculum of Data Structure and Algorithm

A significant research on reform and practice in bilingual teaching for the course of Data Structure and Algorithm is presented in this paper. The specific course teaching model suitable for practical situation of the university that the researchers are working for is gradually built up through integrating international concepts of higher education, constructing comprehensive teaching resources, reforming teaching methods and strategies, and training a high-level bilingual teaching team. It is proved by the practice that the teaching quality and comprehensive ability of undergraduates are being improved, the capability of teaching staff is being promoted, and the demonstration and radiation effects of the course are emerging gradually. All of these improvements indicate that the reform on the course is effective as the goal of course planning is successfully achieved.

Automatic Scoring Algorithm of Chinese Subjective Questions Based on Domain Ontology and Sentence Framework

This paper constructs domain ontology for Data Structure Course and standard (student) answer sentence framework, then proposes a new approach to automatic marking Chinese subjective questions based on them. This method deals with the standard (student) answer in word segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, pronouns digestion, extracting framework, calculating word similarity. Compared with the traditional ones, this means allows the computer to understand the semantic information as much as possible, keeps the semantic relations between standard answer and the students, improves scoring accuracy.

Research of Overall Optimization Based on a Series of Data Structure Courses Teaching Content

Research of Overall Optimization Based on a Series of Data Structure Courses Teaching Content

Research of Overall Optimization Based on a Series of Data Structure Courses Teaching Content

Research of Overall Optimization Based on a Series of Data Structure Courses Teaching Content

A new automated grading approach for computer programming

AbstractThe current grading systems for computer programming assignments have taken correctness, efficiency, complexity, and maintainability into account. Of these four components, the most important measurement is the correctness. However, the existing grading systems still have some drawbacks. It is hard to measure college students' overall programming skills based only on their answers to a single form of programming questions. The author proposes a new approach by presenting multiple forms of computer programming questions, such as statement filling‐in, program modifying and algorithm designing, and by providing an automated grading algorithm to measure the correctness, time efficiency, space efficiency, complexity, and robustness. This proposed automated grading method has been employed successfully in the development of C programming and Delphi programming exam systems for Computer Application Ability Exam for College Students in Fujian. It has also been applied to the development of an online programming self‐testing system for Data Structure course which is offered by Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 484–490, 2013

A Knowledge Cognition and Ontology Based E-Learning System

This paper proposed a framework of knowledge cognition and ontology based e-learning system, it presented a learning characteristics based ontology metadata model(LCOM). On the basis of LCOM, according to cognitive theory and to as an example data structure course, a domain knowledge ontology base model was set up．it makes the development of network courses and management of learning resources independent.

What were they thinking?

This paper describes GraphPad, a web-based software tool designed not only to help an instructor of a CS2 or CS7 (data structures) course deliver content and assess student performance, but also to provide an instructor with the unique ability to observe and understand how students solve problems by replaying the students' solutions. GraphPad works with Tablet PCs or PCs with attached WACOM tablets. We describe how GraphPad enables an instructor to: establish a temporary network with the instructor's Tablet as server and the students' Tablets as clients, broadcast instructions and collect student Ink responses, evaluate student submissions and distribute evaluations with a single button-click, use student submissions as examples to guide lecture, and save student submissions in a database. The saved submissions may be replayed and reviewed individually, tagged for errors, and analyzed statistically. We are currently using GraphPad almost daily in a data structures course. A long term goal is to analyze data collected by GraphPad to help understand the thought process of computer science students for the purpose of identifying students at risk early in order to provide intervention assistance.

Hybrid and custom data structures

The topic of data structures has historically been taught with two major focuses: first, the basic definition and implementation of a small set of basic data structures (e.g. list, stack, queue, tree, graph), and second, the usage of these basic data structures as provided by a data structures framework in solving larger application problems. We see a further evolution of data structures to include new generations of hybrid and custom data structures, implying that our students must not only understand how to use these new data structures but that they continue to understand low-level implementation issues so that they can develop the next generation of data structures needed in the future. We suggest that the data structures course evolve to reflect these new generations of data structures.

Has the paradigm shift in CS1 a harmful effect on data structures courses

The ongoing debate among Computer Science educators about the advantages and disadvantages of the shift from the procedural to the Object-Oriented paradigm usually relates to the introductory course. Indeed, we were also concerned when in our institute we decided to implement this shift in our introductory course and started to teach Java, instead of a procedural paradigm. In our previous study we saw that the effect of the shift did not lower the achievements of students taking the CS1 course. Furthermore, we wanted to be equally sure that this was the case when students take Data Structures courses. This is the focus of the study presented in this paper. The results show that there is no significant difference in the achievements of students who came from different paradigm backgrounds. This encouraging result probably relates to the fact that our CS1 course focuses on the fundamentals of introductory Computer Science and does not only emphasize the language aspects.

Another brief recursion excursion to Hanoi

We propose another simple Towers of Hanoi variant, a hybrid between classical Hanoi and linear Hanoi, in which the rules governing movement depend on ring color. An optimal algorithm is presented. The problem and its heavily recursive solution are not difficult; perhaps one of its more interesting facets is that the optimality proof uses simultaneous induction on four statements. This paper can be viewed as similar in purpose and spirit to the author's previous work [1]; the goal here is again to present a fun example of potential usefulness in teaching discrete mathematics and data structures courses.

Programming competition problems as a basis for an algorithms and data structures course

This paper describes an algorithms and data structures course that uses ACM programming competition problems as the basis for the lectures, homework and exams. The course, designed and developed as...

Construction of a Flexible Data Structures Laboratory


 
 
 In a computer science curriculum, the data structures course is considered fundamental. In that course, students must generate the ability to desingn the more suitable data structures for a problem solution. They must also write an efficient algorithm in order to solve the problem. Students must understand that there are different types of data structures, each of them with associated algorithms of different complexity. A data structures laboratory is a set of computional tools that helps students in the experimentation with the concepts introduced in the curse. The main objetive of this experimentation is to generate the student's needed abilities for manipulating complex data structure. This paper presents the main characteristics of the laboratory built as a sopport of the course. we illustrate the huge possibilities of the tool with an example.
 
 

Treisman workshops and student performance in CS

Active learning techniques, including collaborative programming and problem solving environments, have been widely adopted by many computer science educators. A related approach is the Treisman model, which was originally designed for the first-year calculus course and involves intensive workshops where students collaborate in small groups to solve problems. We have adapted the model for both the data structures and algorithms courses at our institution. Regression analysis indicates that students who participate in the workshops for the algorithms course perform better (0.561 grade points on a 4-point scale) than those who do not, even after accounting for prior academic performance. However, the workshops appear to have less of an effect on student grades in the data structures course. This study provides evidence that the workshop model can be an effective learning environment for students in courses primarily involving analysis, but that for courses that involve large amounts of programming, further adaptations to the model might be needed.

A computing perspective on the Bologna process

The Bologna process is intended to culminate in the formation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2010. Its aim is to facilitate the mobility of people, the transparency and recognition of qualifications, quality and development of a European dimension to higher education, and the attractiveness of European institutions for third country students.This paper provides an overview of progress towards implementation in EHEA member states using official documents and interview data from faculty teaching computing in countries represented at the ITiCSE 2006 meeting. The key areas where the structures established by the Bologna process are problematic for computing education arise from the rapidly changing nature of the curriculum. It seems that the maturity and capability criteria, as well as the manner in which learning outcomes are specified, being developed within the Bologna process are too general. This endangers the properties of transparency and mobility that the process intends to promote.Progression and prerequisite knowledge in computing degrees can be very specific. For instance, generic learning outcomes for an introductory programming course quite rightly will not specify the programming language, or languages, used to implement algorithms. However, suppose a student intends to study an advanced algorithms and data structures course in which Java is the language of implementation which has an introductory course in programming as a prerequisite. If the introductory course language was Standard ML it is not clear that the prerequisite course actually provides the student with a suitable background. These types of complexities are typical of computing, where early subject curricula are not standardised nationally or internationally, and create significant hurdles for realising the Bologna objectives.