Providing timely feedback to large classes

Providing timely and high-quality feedback has been identified as one of the critical factors in learning. In courses with large class sizes the amount of time required for critiquing makes it prohibitive to give feedback to students on more than two or three assignments per semester. As a result, students have limited opportunities to learn from their mistakes, and it is difficult for lecturers to monitor student progress. The alternative to manual critiquing is to automate the process. The authors expect automated program critiquing to deliver two major benefits to students: improved feedback and more useful access to lecturers. This paper introduces their project and the expected benefits.