Teaching and learning tools for computer science

Providing innovative tools to support teaching and learning in computer science

Teaching computer science, especially at scale, needs good software tools. These tools need to make concepts accessible easily and in a pedagogically sound manner. They should be easy to use and support a wide range of education administration tasks, including supporting the (automated) assessment of software development activities and the provision of adequate and personalised feedback.

We have been developing various tool platforms for teaching programming and software development:

Nexus is an on-line platform for the automated assessment of programming (and potentially other) assignments
The MDENet Education platform is a platform for teaching model-driven engineering.

I look for PhD students who want to help develop the platforms and assessment / feedback technology and want to help develop empirical evaluations of the platforms and approach. I am also interested in topics in the wider area, such as pedagogy, efficient and effective creation of new assignments (including testing and quality assurance), prevention of plagiarism, etc.

References

Journal Articles

2024

SoSyM

Requirements for Modelling Tools for Teaching

Jörg Kienzle, Steffen Zschaler, William Barnett, and 8 more authors

Software and Systems Modelling 23, 2024

Bib HTML PDF

@article{KienzleZschaler24,
  author = {Kienzle, J{\"o}rg and Zschaler, Steffen and Barnett, William and Sa{\u{g}}lam, Timur and Bucchiarone, Antonio and Abrah{\~a}o, Silvia and Syriani, Eugene and Kolovos, Dimitris and Lethbridge, Timothy and Mustafiz, Sadaf and Meacham, Sofia},
  title = {Requirements for Modelling Tools for Teaching},
  journal = {Software and Systems Modelling},
  volume = {23},
  pages = {1055--1073},
  year = {2024},
  url = {\url{https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-024-01192-y}},
  doi = {10.1007/s10270-024-01192-y},
}

2014

SciCo

Salespoint: A Java framework for teaching object-oriented software development

Steffen Zschaler, Birgit Demuth, and Lothar Schmitz

Science of Computer Programming 79, Jan 2014

Bib HTML

@article{ZschalerEtAl12,
  author = {Zschaler, Steffen and Demuth, Birgit and Schmitz, Lothar},
  title = {{Salespoint}: A {Java} framework for teaching object-oriented software development},
  pages = {189--203},
  doi = {10.1016/j.scico.2012.04.005},
  url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016764231200069X},
  journal = {Science of Computer Programming},
  volume = {79},
  month = jan,
  year = {2014},
  issn = {0167-6423},
}

Conference and Workshop Papers

2024

MoDELS

Move your MDE teaching online: The MDENet Education Platform

Steffen Zschaler, Will Barnett, Artur Boronat, and 2 more authors

In 27th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS’24): Tools and Demonstrations, 2024

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{ZschalerEtAl24,
  author = {Zschaler, Steffen and Barnett, Will and Boronat, Artur and Garcia-Dominguez, Antonio and Kolovos, Dimitris},
  title = {Move your MDE teaching online: The MDENet Education Platform},
  booktitle = {27th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems (MODELS'24): Tools and Demonstrations},
  year = {2024},
  url = {\url{https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3652620.3687780}},
}

2023

Designing Learning Paths with Open Educational Resources: A Case Study in Model-Driven Engineering

Antonio Bucchiarone, Andrea Vazquez-Ingelmo, Gianluca Schiavo, and 3 more authors

In 18th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies, 2023

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{BucchiaroneEtAl23a,
  author = {Bucchiarone, Antonio and Vazquez-Ingelmo, Andrea and Schiavo, Gianluca and Garcia-Holgado, Alicia and Garcia-Penalvo, Francisco and Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {Designing Learning Paths with Open Educational Resources: A Case Study in Model-Driven Engineering},
  year = {2023},
  booktitle = {18th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies},
}

Towards Personalized Learning Paths to Empower Competency Development in Model Driven Engineering through the ENCORE platform

Antonio Bucchiarone, Andrea Vazquez-Ingelmo, Gianluca Schiavo, and 7 more authors

In Proc. Educators Symposium at MODELS 2023, 2023

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{BucchiaroneEtAl23b,
  author = {Bucchiarone, Antonio and Vazquez-Ingelmo, Andrea and Schiavo, Gianluca and Barandoni, Simone and Garcia-Holgado, Alicia and Garcia-Penalvo, Francisco Jose and Mosser, Sebastien and Pierantonio, Alfonso and Zschaler, Steffen and Barnett, William},
  title = {Towards Personalized Learning Paths to Empower Competency Development in Model Driven Engineering through the {ENCORE} platform},
  booktitle = {Proc. Educators Symposium at MODELS 2023},
  year = {2023},
}

An Online Education Platform for Teaching MDE

Will Barnett, Steffen Zschaler, Artur Boronat, and 2 more authors

In Proc. Educators Symposium at MODELS 2023, 2023

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{BarnettEtAl23,
  author = {Barnett, Will and Zschaler, Steffen and Boronat, Artur and Garcia-Dominguez, Antonio and Kolovos, Dimitris},
  title = {An Online Education Platform for Teaching {MDE}},
  booktitle = {Proc. Educators Symposium at MODELS 2023},
  year = {2023},
}

2018

Modularity for Automated Assessment: A Design-Space Exploration

Steffen Zschaler, Sam White, Kyle Hodgetts, and 1 more author

In Workshop Software Engineering für E-Learning-Systeme (SEELS), GI-Tagung "Software Engineering 2018", 2018

Bib HTML PDF

@inproceedings{ZschalerEtAl18,
  author = {Zschaler, Steffen and White, Sam and Hodgetts, Kyle and Chapman, Martin},
  title = {Modularity for Automated Assessment: A Design-Space Exploration},
  booktitle = {Workshop Software Engineering f{\"u}r E-Learning-Systeme (SEELS), GI-Tagung "Software Engineering 2018"},
  year = {2018},
}

2017

NEXUS: A flexible platform for automated assessment and feedback

Steffen Zschaler, Martin Chapman, Sam White, and 2 more authors

In 11th Excellence in Teaching Conference, London, 2017

Bib

@inproceedings{ZschalerEtAl17,
  author = {Zschaler, Steffen and Chapman, Martin and White, Sam and Hodgetts, Kyle and Armstrong, John},
  title = {{NEXUS}: A flexible platform for automated assessment and feedback},
  booktitle = {11th Excellence in Teaching Conference, London},
  year = {2017},
}

2001

Teaching OOT Using a Framework and Both Direct and Net-based Tutoring

Birgit Demuth, Heinrich Hussmann, Lothar Schmitz, and 1 more author

In ED-MEDIA 2001 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Tampere, Finland, June 25-30, 2001, 2001

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{Demuth01,
  author = {Demuth, Birgit and Hussmann, Heinrich and Schmitz, Lothar and Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {Teaching OOT Using a Framework and Both Direct and Net-based Tutoring},
  booktitle = {ED-MEDIA 2001 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Tampere, Finland, June 25-30, 2001},
  year = {2001},
}

2000

A Framework-Based Approach to Teaching OOT: Aims, Implementation, and Experience

Birgit Demuth, Heinrich Hussmann, Lothar Schmitz, and 1 more author

In Proceedings 13th Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training 6-8 March 2000, Austin, Texas, 2000

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{Demuth00,
  author = {Demuth, Birgit and Hussmann, Heinrich and Schmitz, Lothar and Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {A Framework-Based Approach to Teaching OOT: Aims, Implementation, and Experience},
  editor = {Mengel, Susan A. and Knoke, Peter J.},
  booktitle = {Proceedings 13th Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training 6-8 March 2000, Austin, Texas},
  publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
  year = {2000},
}

1999

Verkaufsanwendungen auf Basis des Anwendungsframeworks SalesPoint

Birgit Demuth, Lothar Schmitz, and Steffen Zschaler

In Erfahrungen mit Java. Projekte aus Industrie und Hochschule, 1999

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{Demuth99,
  author = {Demuth, Birgit and Schmitz, Lothar and Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {Verkaufsanwendungen auf Basis des Anwendungsframeworks SalesPoint},
  editor = {Maffeis, Silvano and Toenniessen, Fridtjof and Zeidler, Christian},
  booktitle = {Erfahrungen mit Java. Projekte aus Industrie und Hochschule},
  publisher = {dpunkt- Verlag},
  year = {1999},
}

Erfahrungen mit einem frameworkbasierten Softwarepraktikum

Birgit Demuth, Heinrich Hussmann, Lothar Schmitz, and 1 more author

In Tagungsband des 6. Workshops Software-Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen, 1999

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{Demuth99a,
  author = {Demuth, Birgit and Hussmann, Heinrich and Schmitz, Lothar and Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {Erfahrungen mit einem frameworkbasierten Softwarepraktikum},
  booktitle = {Tagungsband des 6. Workshops Software-Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen},
  publisher = {Teubner-Verlag},
  year = {1999},
}

1998

Using a Framework to Teach OOT to Beginners

Birgit Demuth, Heinrich Hussmann, Lothar Schmitz, and 1 more author

In OOPSLA’98, Educators’ Symposium, Oct 1998

Bib PDF

@inproceedings{Demuth98,
  author = {Demuth, Birgit and Hussmann, Heinrich and Schmitz, Lothar and Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {Using a Framework to Teach OOT to Beginners},
  booktitle = {OOPSLA'98, Educators' Symposium},
  month = oct,
  year = {1998},
}

Theses

2000

Das Framework “SalesPoint”: Technische Beschreibung der Version 2.0 und weiterer Ausbaumöglichkeiten

Steffen Zschaler

2000

In German only.

Bib PDF

@mastersthesis{Zschaler00,
  author = {Zschaler, Steffen},
  title = {Das Framework ``SalesPoint'': Technische Beschreibung der Version 2.0 und weiterer Ausbaum{\"o}glichkeiten},
  type = {Grosser Beleg},
  institute = {Technische Universit{\"a}t Dresden},
  year = {2000},
  note = {In German only.},
}