Ellen Francine Barbosa

A requirements catalog for mobile learning environments

Mobile learning (m-learning) can be characterized by the ability to promote a strong interaction among apprentices and tutors, assuring greater motivation, convenience and flexibility to the learning process. Mobile learning environments have emerged in this context as a way to support the m-learning initiatives. However, despite their relevance, there is no complete and well-defined set of requirements for such systems. Motivated by this scenario, in this paper we present a requirements catalog for mobile learning environments. The catalog was established from the results of a systematic review conducted in this domain. Additionally, based on the knowledge of domain specialists, the requirements were prioritized to reflect the main experiences, needs and constraints regarding the m-learning development. The catalog adopts a three-level hierarchical structure, in which the main criteria, characteristics and requirements of m-learning environments are defined and detailed.

Integrated teaching of programming foundations and software testing

The importance of software testing is widely recognized, but usually only a small portion of the computer science (CS) curriculum is allocated for teaching it. Some experiences have suggested that the teaching of software testing should begin as early as possible so an adequate culture of testing could be created. One way to achieve this is addressing testing practices in conjunction with programming concepts in introductory CS courses. In this paper we explore such idea, working on the integration between the teaching of software testing along with the teaching of programming foundations. We discuss the development of an educational module, and its related learning materials, for integrating such knowledge domains. Besides that, we propose PROGTEST - a Web-based environment for the submission and automatic evaluation of practical programming assignments based on testing activities, aiming at providing an adequate feedback to evaluate the learnerspsila performance concerning programming and testing.

Unit and integration testing strategies for C programs using mutation

Mutation testing, originally proposed for unit testing, has been extended to integration testing with the proposition of the Interface Mutation criterion. This paper presents the results of an experiment using two mutation‐based testing criteria for unit and integration testing phases: the Mutation Analysis and the Interface Mutation adequacy criteria, respectively. The aim is to investigate how they can be used in a complementary way during the testing activity, establishing an incremental testing strategy comprising the unit and integration testing phases and guidelines on how to obtain a high mutation score with respect to mutation testing with a low cost, in terms of the number of mutants generated. Copyright

Towards Reducing Cognitive Load and Enhancing Usability through a Reduced Graphical User Interface for a Dynamic Geometry System: An Experimental Study

The interface is the main mechanism of communication between user and system features. In educational software, successful user interface designs minimize the cognitive load on users, thereby users can direct their efforts to maximize their understanding of the educational concepts being presented. We investigated whether a reduced interface make few cognitive demands on users in comparison to a complete interface. In this context, this research aims at analyzing a reduced and a complete interface of an interactive geometry software, and verify the educational benefits they provide. To this end, we designed the interfaces and carried out an experiment involving 69 undergraduate students. The experimental results indicate that an interface that hides advanced and extraneous features helps novice users to perform slightly better than novice users using a complete interface. After receiving proper training, however, a complete interface makes users more productive than a reduced interface.

Unit and Integration Testing Strategies for C Programs Using Mutation-Based Criteria

Mutation testing, originally proposed to unit testing, has been extended to integration testing with the proposition of the Interface Mutation criterion. In this paper we analyze the results of an experiment comparing two mutation-based testing criteria for unit and integration testing phases: the Mutation Analysis and the Interface Mutation adequacy criteria, respectively. The aim is to investigate how they could be used in a complementary way during the testing activity. We attempt to establish an incremental testing strategy comprising the unit and integration testing phases and guidelines on how to obtain a high mutation score with respect to mutation testing with a lower cost, in terms of the number of mutants generated.

An Integrated Content Modeling Approach for Educational Modules

Educational modules — concise units of study capable of integrating theoretical/practical contents and supporting tools — can be seen as relevant mechanisms to facilitate the student’s apprenticeship. The establishment of processes and modeling approaches should ease the cooperative work to create, reuse and evolve educational modules, taking also into account the impact on the learning process. There are initiatives to address the problem of modeling educational contents, but none of them provides a complete set of features addressing the conceptual, instructional and didactic perspectives. Moreover, these initiatives do not consider a systematic process for developing educational modules. In this work we summarize the main aspects of a standardized process for developing educational modules we have proposed, focusing on the modeling activity for structuring the learning contents. An integrated modeling approach is presented and its application is illustrated by the development of an educational module for the software testing domain. The material produced has been applied and preliminarily evaluated in terms of the student’s attitude toward content, usability and navigational aspects.

Towards the Establishment of a Standard Process for Developing Educational Modules

Educational modules, concise units of study capable of integrating theoretical/practical content and supporting tools, are relevant mechanisms to improve the learning process. Despite their relevance, none of the initiatives to address the problem of creating educational modules considers a systematic process for developing them. The establishment of a well-defined set of guidelines and supporting mechanisms should ease the distributed and cooperative work to create, reuse and evolve educational modules, taking also into account the impact on the learning process. In this work we present a standardized process we have established aiming at creating well-designed, highly flexible and configurable educational modules. Aspects of process specialization and instantiation have also been considered. Its application is illustrated by the development of a software testing educational module, which has been applied and preliminarily evaluated in terms of the learners attitude toward content, usability and navigational aspects. In general, we observed a positive attitude toward the flexibility provided by the produced educational module

Exploring ontologies to support the establishment of reference architectures: An example on software testing

Software architectures have played a significant role in determining the success of software systems. In particular, reference architectures have emerged, achieving well-recognized understanding in a specific domain, promoting reuse of design expertise and facilitating the development of systems. In another perspective, ontologies have been widely investigated aiming at representing, communicating and reusing knowledge. In spite of their relevance on directly dealing with domain knowledge, reference architectures and ontologies have been separately treated. In this paper we investigate the impact in using ontologies to the establishment of reference architectures. We illustrate our idea using an ontology of software testing to build a reference architecture for the testing domain. Preliminary results indicate that ontologies are an important and viable mechanism aiming at building reference architectures.

An Experience on Applying Learning Mechanisms for Teaching Inspection and Software Testing

Educational modules, concise units of study capable of integrating theoretical/practical content and supporting tools, are relevant mechanisms to improve learning processes. In this paper we briefly discuss the establishment of mechanisms to ease the development of educational modules - a Standard Process for Developing Educational Modules and an Integrated Modeling Approach for structuring their learning content. The proposed mechanisms have been investigated in the development of the ITonCode module - an educational module for teaching inspection and testing techniques. Aiming at evaluating the module we have replicated an extended version of the Basili & Selby experiment, originally used for comparing V&V techniques, now considering the educational context. The obtained results were mainly analyzed in terms of the students uniformity in detecting existent faults, giving us very preliminar evidences on the learning effectiveness provided by the module produced.

A contribution to the quality evaluation of mobile learning environments

In recent years, issues related to teaching and learning have been more and more discussed and investigated by the scientific community. Mobile learning (m-learning) environments, despite the benefits provided, are still considered as new and incipient products. Among the limitations observed in the construction and adoption of such environments, we highlight the lack of specific quality guidelines to allow an adequate evaluation of them. In short, the planning and execution of a systematic evaluation among m-learning environments can ease their selection and adoption by apprentices, tutors and educational organizations. Motivated by this scenario, in this paper we propose a process for the quality evaluation of mobile learning environments. To validate our ideas, we have applied the proposed process in the quality evaluation of a set of m-learning environments. The promising results achieved suggest the feasibility of adopting the process for quality evaluation purposes in the m-learning domain.