The current educational system relies heavily on manual grading, posing challenges such as delayed feedback and grading inaccuracies. Automated grading tools (AGTs) offer solutions but come with limitations. To address this, "GRAD-AI" is introduced, an advanced AGT that combines automation with teacher involvement for precise grading,…

We conducted a systematic literature review on automated grading and feedback tools for programming education. We analysed 121 research papers from 2017 to 2021 inclusive and categorised them based on skills assessed, approach, language paradigm, degree of automation, and evaluation techniques. Most papers assess the correctness of assignments in…

Programming demands a variety of cognitive skills, and mastering these competencies is essential for success in computer science education. The importance of formative feedback is well acknowledged in programming education, and thus, a diverse range of techniques has been proposed to generate and enhance formative feedback for programming…

Artificial intelligence (AI) in programming teaching is something that still has to be explored, since in this area assessment tools that allow grading the students work are the most common ones, but there are not many tools aimed toward providing feedback to the students in the process of creating their program. In this work a small sized…

The University of Palermo is proud to host the 18th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM) in Palermo, Italy, from July 20 to July 23, 2025. EDM is the annual flagship conference of the International Educational Data Mining Society. This year's theme is "New Goals, New Measurements, New Incentives to Learn." The theme…

As programming emerges as a critical skill in the digital age and digital tools continue to evolve, understanding students' perspectives on the integration of such technologies into their education is crucial. This empirical study explores the perspectives of students in Sweden and Taiwan on the use of digital tools in their programming courses.…

Background and Context: automated feedback for programming assignments has great potential in promoting just-in-time learning, but there has been little work investigating the design of feedback in this context. Objective: to investigate the impacts of different designs of automated feedback on student learning at a fine-grained level, and how…

Autograding systems are being increasingly deployed to meet the challenges of teaching programming at scale. Studies show that formative feedback can greatly help novices learn programming. This work extends an autograder, enabling it to provide formative feedback on programming assignment submissions. Our methodology starts with the design of a…

Computer-graders have been in regular use in the context of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). The automatic grading of programs presents an opportunity to assess and provide tailored feedback to large classes, while featuring at the same time a number of benefits like: immediate feedback, unlimited submissions, as well as low cost of feedback.…

Recently, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been offering a new online approach in the field of distance learning and online education. A typical MOOC course consists of video lectures, reading material and easily accessible tests for students. For a computer programming course, it is important to provide interactive, dynamic, online coding…

Standards-based grading (SBG) tightly links student assessment to course learning objectives, providing students with meaningful feedback. A well-designed SBG system should ease first-year engineering (FYE) students' transition to tertiary education by setting clear expectations and enabling self-monitoring of learning progress. However, when…

Instructors often use spreadsheet software (e.g., Microsoft Excel) in their statistics courses so that students can gain experience conducting computerized analyses. Unfortunately, students tend to make several predictable errors when programming spreadsheets. Without immediate feedback, programming errors are likely to go undetected, and as a…

This paper examines the impact of a novel assessment technique that has been used to improve the feedback given to second year Computer Science students at the University of Nottingham. Criteria for effective, high quality feedback are discussed. An automated marking system (The Marker's Apprentice--TMA) produces instant feedback in synergy with…

This article explores the suitability of static analysis techniques based on the abstract syntax tree (AST) for the automated assessment of early/mid degree level programming. Focus is on fairness, timeliness and consistency of grades and feedback. Following investigation into manual marking practises, including a survey of markers, the assessment…

Effective mining of data from online submission systems offers the potential to improve educational outcomes by identifying student habits and behaviours and their relationship with levels of achievement. In particular, it may assist in identifying students at risk of performing poorly, allowing for early intervention. In this paper we investigate…