Laboratory work assignments are very important for computer science learning. Over the last 12 years many students have been involved in solving such assignments in the authors' department, having reached a figure of more than 400 students doing the same assignment in the same year. This number of students has required teachers to pay special attention to conceivable plagiarism cases. A plagiarism detection tool has been developed as part of a full toolset for helping in the management of the laboratory work assignments. This tool defines and uses four similarity criteria to measure how similar two assignment implementations are. The paper describes the plagiarism detection tool and the experience of using it over the last 12 years in four different programming assignments, from microprogramming a CPU to system programming in C.

Detection of Plagiarism in Programming Assignments

Laboratory-style teaching of computer science is discussed. The paper describes an approach, used for some years by the nuthors, that wus developed after studying the methods used in the traditional laboratory sciences; its use helps to establish the equivalence for funding purposes of computer science with other laboratory sciences. Examples are given, and techniques that have been found useftd are described. The factors to be considered when setting tests for grading are examined in detail.

Laboratory-style teaching of computer science

This thesis consists of a series of internationally published, peer reviewed, journal and conference research papers that analyse the educational and training needs of undergraduate Information Technology (IT) students within the area of Computer and Network Technology (CNT) Education. Research by Maj et al has found that accredited computing science curricula can fail to meet the expectations of employers in the field of CNT: “It was found that none of these students could perform first line maintenance on a Personal Computer (PC) to a professional standard with due regard to safety, both to themselves and the equipment. Neither could they install communication cards, cables and network operating system or manage a population of networked PCs to an acceptable commercial standard without further extensive training. It is noteworthy that none of the students interviewed had ever opened a PC. It is significant that all those interviewed for this study had successfully completed all the units on computer architecture and communication engineering" (Maj, Robbins, Shaw, & Duley, 1998). The students' curricula at that time lacked units in which they gained hands-on experience in modern PC hardware or networking skills. This was despite the fact that their computing science course was level one accredited, the highest accreditation level offered by the Australian Computer Society (ACS). The results of the initial survey in Western Australia led to the introduction of two new units within the Computing Science Degree at Edith Cowan University (ECU), Computer Installation & Maintenance (CIM) and Network Installation & Maintenance (NIM) (Maj, Fetherston, Charlesworth, & Robbins, 1998). Uniquely within an Australian university context these new syllabi require students to work on real equipment. Such experience excludes digital circuit investigation, which is still a recommended approach by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for computer architecture units (ACM, 2001, p.97). Instead, the CIM unit employs a top-down approach based initially upon students' everyday experiences, which is more in accordance with constructivist educational theory and practice. These papers propose an alternate model of IT education that helps to accommodate the educational and vocational needs of IT students in the context of continual rapid changes and developments in technology. The ACM have recognised the need for variation noting that: "There are many effective ways to organize a curriculum even for a particular set of goals and objectives" (Tucker et al., 1991, p.70). A possible major contribution to new knowledge of these papers relates to how high level abstract bandwidth (B-Node) models may contribute to the understanding of why and how computer and networking technology systems have developed over time. Because these models are de-coupled from the underlying technology, which is subject to rapid change, these models may help to future-proof student knowledge and understanding of the ongoing and future development of computer and…

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An investigation into computer and network curricula

and Use Operating Systems (OS) is an essential course in computer science education. In this paper, we describe three course projects which use UNIX @ as their basis. We discuss the objectives underlying the design of these projects, and the ways in which these projects provide students with links among theory, practice and use of OS. 1 Introduction In Operating Systems (OS) courses, providing students with opportunities to engage in practical projects is essential for grasping the underlying theoretical concepts [12, 13], Project environments in operating system courses have taken many forms. The use of simulated machines as the basis for students projects has spanned over a decade [13, 14]. More recently, instructional systems have been developed which simulate and graphically display the actions of an operating system and allow students to change parameters and modify algorithms [1, 4]. Addltionatly, the widespread availability of low cost computer systems has provided environments in which students can develop simple, complete operating systems [7, 7, 10] as well as environments in which students can study and modify simple, but fully functional, operating systems [2, 6, 12]. In this paper, we discuss three projects used recently in our OS course. The projects use UNIX as their basis. The first project makes use of UNIX system calls, the second project involves implementation of a UNIX command with which the students are familiar as users, and the third project involves actual modification of UNIX source code. The objectives of these projects are threefold (1) The project experience should clearly integrate with class presentations and discussions, enrich students' understanding of these concepts, and enhance their appreciation for the theory which provides the framework for implementation. (2) The project experience should allow students to see the underlying complexities of OS and help them gain insight into what they may encounter if Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice ie given that copying is by permission of the Association for Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to republish, requires a fee and/or specific permission. their future studies or work is in the field of OS. (3) The project experience should provide students a context to understand more clearly their experiences as users of OS. …

Operating Systems Projects: linking theory, practice and use

Hands-on practical experience through lab work has long been recognized as an important part of the computer network education. Successful computer network hands-on activities require a full range of related devices with actively maintaining. This paper presents prototype architecture of a Xen-based Networks Laboratory Service Cloud (NLS-Cloud, original CLESP) that can provide an entire computer networks hands-on practical environment with uniformed deployment and management as an online service to learners and instructors. The prototype NLS-Cloud has been investigated by introducing a series of surveys. The instructor survey results showed that the prototype NLS-Cloud exerted a certain positive effect on the hands-on pedagogical activities while the learner survey results indicated that students had a favorable view of the NLS-Cloud and regarded it as a useful learning tool.

Bulid a laboratory cloud for computer network education

The subject of microprogramming should be an important part of a course in computer organization. It connects the higher-level view of the machine (machine language, instruction set, register and memory architecture) with the lower-level view (digital logic), by showing how an instruction set can be implemented using digital logic. Unfortunately, there are several obstacles in the way of a suitable presentation of microprogramming in an undergraduate course. One is that detailed specifications of the microprogramming level of currently popular computers are considered to be proprietary information and for that reason are usually unavailable. When such specifications are available, they are typically of such a complex nature as to make then unsuitable as an introduction to the subject of microprogramming for beginning students. Another problem is the lack of proper facilities for laboratory work in microprogramming. Although microprogrammable processors, such as the Burroughs B1830, do exist and have been used in teaching computer organization [2], most colleges and universities do not have access to such machines.

MicMac: a microprogram simulator for courses in computer organization

Teaching operating systems in a virtual machine environment

One of the objectives of a course in computer organization is to show how the machine language of a computer (with which students are already familiar through an assembly language course) is actually implemented. This is normally accomplished by first gaining familiarity with digital logic (gates, flip-flops, registers, multiplexer, etc.) and then proceeding to design a simple machine. The last stage of this design process is to design the control unit, either by hardwired control or microprogramming. Thus, microprogramming is a central topic in the study of computer organization, tying together the study of digital logic with the implementation of the machine language of a computer. It follows that laboratory experience in microprogramming should be an important part of the computer organization course. In most cases, however, access to microprogrammable hardware is not available. Although some instructors have utilized commercially available microprogrammable processors [1] or actually built microprogrammable hardware for classroom use [2], the most common approach has been to rely on software simulation of hardware at the microprogramming level [3-12]. The simulation approach allows students to carry out a variety of exercises involving the implementation of a conventional machine language. The most popular target architecture for classroom simulators has been the Mic-1 machine described in the Computer Organization text of Tanenbaum [13]. The Mic-1 is a microprogrammable architecture which Tanenbaum uses to implement a simple machine instruction set for a single-accumulator machine called the Mac1.

A microprogram simulator and compiler for an enhanced version of Tanenbaum's MIC-1 machine

This paper describes a term project for the operating systems course which is currently being taught at The University of Akron. The project involves the writing of a multiprogramming operating for an IBM 370 mainframe computer using the Uaterloo C compi ler . In particular, the paper describes and evaluates the recent conversion of this project from the use of assembly language to the use of C.

John L. Donaldson

Papers

MicMac: a microprogram simulator for courses in computer organization

Teaching operating systems in a virtual machine environment

A microprogram simulator and compiler for an enhanced version of Tanenbaum's MIC-1 machine

Operating systems from assembler to C