Charmain Cilliers

The effect of integrating an Iconic programming notation into CS1

Increasing pressure from national government to improve throughput at South African tertiary education institutions presents challenges to educators of CS1 courses. In response, educators must adopt effective methods and strategies that encourage students to be successful in such courses. An approach that seeks to increase and maintain satisfactory throughput is the modification of the teaching model in these courses by adjusting presentation techniques. This paper reports on a study into the effect of integrating an experimental iconic programming notation and associated development environment with existing conventional textual technological support in the teaching model of a CS1 course. The paper reports on the comparison of the performance achievement of students using only conventional textual technological support with that of students using the integrated iconic and conventional textual technological support. The findings suggest strong evidence that the performance achievement of students in a CS1 course improves significantly with the inclusion of iconic technological support in the teaching model. Considerably more students using the integrated form of technological support are in fact successful in the CS1 course when compared with their counterparts who use conventional textual technological support only.

Qualitative techniques for evaluating enterprise resource planning (ERP) user interfaces

Studies have recommended usability criteria for evaluating Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. However these criteria do not provide sufficient qualitative information regarding the behaviour of users when interacting with the user interface of these systems. A triangulation technique, including the use of time diaries, can be used in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research for providing additional qualitative data that cannot be accurately collected by experimental or even observation means alone. Limited studies have been performed on the use of time diaries in a triangulation approach as an HCI research method for the evaluation of the usability of ERP systems. This paper reports on a case study where electronic time diaries were used in conjunction with other HCI research methods, namely, surveys and usability questionnaires, in order to evaluate the usability of an ERP system. The results of the study show that a triangulation technique including the use of time diaries is a rich and useful method that allows more flexibility for respondents and can be used to help understand user behaviour when interacting with ERP systems. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data collected from the time diaries validated the quantitative data and highlighted common problem areas encountered during typical tasks performed with the ERP system. An improved understanding of user behaviour enabled the redesign of the tasks performed during the ERP learning process and could provide guidance to ERP designers for improving the usability and ease of learning of ERP systems.

B#: The Development and Assessment of an Iconic Programming Tool for Novice Programmers

The higher incidence of under-prepared students in the South African education institutions has a particular significance for introductory programming courses which rely heavily on the use of technological tools as components of the teaching model. Difficulties experienced by novice programmers in introductory programming courses include deficiencies in problem-solving strategies, misconceptions relating to programming language constructs and the use of traditional programming environments. An introductory programming course should offer students problem solving analysis and design experience as well as exposure to the basic ideas of algorithmic thinking. Generally, introductory programming courses tend to concentrate on the syntax of a programming language at the expense of developing problem solving skills. Coupled to this are the ever-increasing complexity of modern programming languages and the user interfaces of their IDEs. A strategy that addresses the difficulties experienced by novice programmers in introductory programming courses is one that modifies the teaching model, specifically within the context of technological support. One way of implementing this strategy is with the use of visual programming languages, of which the iconic flowchart approach is one. Further, iconic programming environments traditionally attempt to simplify the programming task by reducing the level of precision and manual typing usually required in the conventional textual programming languages. These environments also attempt to increase the speed at which problem-solving and implementation efforts occur. Consequently, B# was developed in order to provide an environment in which programs can be developed using iconic flowcharts. Basic programming concepts such as assignments, conditions, loops, inputs and outputs are supported. Automatic code generation, debugging and program execution is also supported by the system. This paper reports on the development of B#, focusing on insights that were obtained concerning iconic programming tools. The use of B# by novice programmers in an introductory programming course is discussed and assessed. Recommendations are made as to how an iconic programming environment like B# could contribute to the successful completion of an introductory programming course

Student perception of academic writing skills activities in a traditional programming course

Employers of computing graduates have high expectations of graduates in terms of soft skills, the most desirable of these being communication skills. Not only must the graduates exhibit writing skills, but they are expected to be highly proficient therein. The consequence of this expectation is not only performance pressure exerted on the graduate, but also the laying down of a challenge at the door of computing instructors to encourage and instil successfully the art of writing in the graduate. Varied and numerous initiatives have been launched in the computing discipline to address this particular challenge over the past few decades. Despite documented success on the many experiences of incorporating writing into the computing discipline, the fact is that the challenge is as relevant today as it was in the 1980s. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that agreement is yet to be reached on exactly how to integrate successfully writing skills into traditional computing curricula, thereby familiarising computing students with an essential activity of their chosen profession. Furthermore, the reporting of successful experiences tends to focus on the application of a variety of teaching strategies, is predominantly based on the experiences of instructors and is dominated by a lack of quantifiable results. This apparent lack of sufficient empirical evidence prompted a rigorous investigation into the perceived benefits of the integration of writing skills activities into a traditional intermediary level programming course. The main aim of the study is to measure the perceived benefit of each of a number of academic writing interventions, facilitated to skill students appropriately in the art of writing for the computing discipline. Each intervention is designed to support particular principles of academic writing. The ultimate outcome of the study is a survey which allows student participants to measure the perceived benefit-impact of each intervention. The qualitative and quantitative findings of this study suggest that students perceive most of the commonly used academic writing activities as beneficial in the construction of a report. What is apparent, however, is that those activities that are most frequently used by instructors are not necessarily perceived by students as being the most useful activities.

Simulating Robots Without Conventional Physics: A Neural Network Approach

The construction of physics-based simulators for use in Evolutionary Robotics (ER) can be complex and time-consuming. Alternative simulation schemes construct robotic simulators from empirically-collected data. Such empirical simulators, however, also have associated challenges. This paper therefore investigates the potential use of Artificial Neural Networks, henceforth simply referred to as Neural Networks (NNs), as alternative robotic simulators. In contrast to physics models, NN-based simulators can be constructed without requiring an explicit mathematical model of the system being modeled, which can simplify simulator development. The generalization abilities of NNs, along with NNs’ noise tolerance, suggest that NNs could be well-suited to application in robotics simulation. Investigating whether NNs can be effectively used as robotic simulators in ER is thus the endeavour of this work. Two robot morphologies were selected on which the NN simulators created in this work were based, namely a differentially steered robot and an inverted pendulum robot. Accuracy tests indicated that NN simulators created for these robots generally trained well and could generalize well on data not presented during simulator construction. In order to validate the feasibility of the created NN simulators in the ER process, these simulators were subsequently used to evolve controllers in simulation, similar to controllers developed in related studies. Encouraging results were obtained, with the newly-evolved controllers allowing experimental robots to exhibit obstacle avoidance, light-approaching behaviour and inverted pendulum stabilization. It was thus clearly established that NN-based robotic simulators can be successfully employed as alternative simulation schemes in the ER process.

Towards an artificial neural network-based simulator for behavioural evolution in evolutionary robotics

It is not apparent to employ an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) as simulator structure during the Evolutionary Robotics (ER) process. Consequently, the potential for the use of an ANN in this regard has been investigated in this paper. This simulator Neural Network (NN) was trained to predict changes in the position and orientation resulting from arbitrary motor commands sent to a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot moving in a two-dimensional plane. The proposed NN simulator was employed as an alternative to conventional physics-engine based simulators to evolve simple navigation behaviour in said robot and encouraging results were obtained.

Visual Web Mining of Organizational Web Sites

Existing Web usage mining (WUM) tools do not indicate which data mining algorithms are used or provide effective graphical visualizations of the results obtained. WUM techniques can be used to determine typical navigation patterns in an organizational Web site. The process of combining WUM and information visualization techniques in order to discover useful information about Web usage patterns is called visual Web mining. The goal of this paper is to discuss the development of a visual Web mining prototype, called WebPatterns, which allows the user to effectively visualize Web usage patterns

A framework proposal for algorithm animation systems

The studying and teaching of the analysis of algorithmic concepts can prove to be complex for both students and educators in algorithm courses. Traditional instructional aids such as textbook illustrations and other visual aids are attempts to address this challenge. A number of algorithm animation systems have emerged to address the limitation inherent in these static visual aids. One limitation of current algorithm animation systems is their restricted flexibility in terms of the simple addition of non-resident functionality, especially algorithms. This paper presents the design of an extensible framework for algorithm animation systems. A brief discussion on the development of a prototype using sorting algorithms based on the framework demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed design.

A Program Beacon Recognition Tool

Learning to program is not an easy task. Program comprehension is integral to this process. Two main theories of program comprehension have been identified as a result of more than thirty years of investigation into the human psychology of computer programming. Both theories rely on the presence of program beacons. Beacons are described as key features in a program that serve as indicators of a particular programming structure. Beacons primarily convey semantic knowledge about the program and tend to be highly recognizable within a program by expert programmers. Technology can assist novice programmers with the learning process associated with program comprehension by making use of interactive tools that focus on the identification of program beacons. This paper describes a program beacon recognition tool developed during 2005. The primary purpose of the tool is to encourage a novice programmer to correctly identify beacons within provided program extracts. The tool is an attempt to empower novice programmers while learning to program so that they master the skills directly associated with program comprehension

A Neural Network-based kinematic and light-perception simulator for simple robotic evolution

Current research reveals limited investigations into the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) as robot simulators. The noise-tolerance and generalization capabilities of ANNs, however, suggest that ANNs could be well-suited to this application. As a result of this observation, a novel technique has been identified wherein ANNs are used as robot simulators. ANNs were employed to simulate the motion dynamics of a mobile robot steered using differential steering, as well as the interaction of two light sensors onboard the robot with a light source in its vicinity. To test the performance of the developed simulators, these simulators were used to evolve a light-approaching robotic control structure in simulation, which was subsequently transferred to the real-world robot. Results indicate that the simulation-evolved controller transferred well from simulation to the real-world robot. It could thus be deduced that ANNs show definite promise as robot simulators.