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Bibliometric analysis was performed to study the development of publications related to Industry 4.0 and its key technologies in Vietnam. Comparisons with data from other ASEAN countries, and with global data have been done to identify distinctive characteristics of Industry 4.0 literature from Vietnam. The collection of 1,470 retrieved papers was analysed to answer seven research questions. Our results highlighted some valuable insights of Industry 4.0 literature in Vietnam. The number of papers in Industry 4.0 in Vietnam increased rapidly in recent years, mostly focused on Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics. Iran, China, and South Korea were the most productive partner countries with Vietnam in Industry 4.0. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, deep learning, Internet of things, neural networks, and data mining were among the most popular research themes in Industry 4.0 in Vietnam. Vietnam ranked third among 10 Southeast Asian countries, based on the number of published papers in Industry 4.0, but the gap with the two top countries was large. Compared to the global data, the annual growth rate of Industry 4.0 papers in Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries was lower. Findings from this work can be helpful for other scholars in establishing potential future research lines related to Industry 4.0 in Vietnam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interest in the study of computer technology in schools (often in the form of Computer Science subjects or coding initiatives) is seen to have undergone two waves of interest, one in the late 1970s/early 1980s and the other more recently since about 2010. Through a historical exploration of the rationales for the study of computer technology in schools in both the first wave and the second wave, this paper aimed to explore the various curriculum ideologies underpinning their justification. In doing so, the paper highlights the chameleon‐like nature of this change agenda in aligning with contemporary trends to advance the study of computer technology on the curriculum. The paper argues that current manifestations of the study of computer technology in schools are at odds with broader curriculum reform goals and international policies and raises questions about students' access to such knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 60 years of technology development, transformation of educational policy and curriculum innovation in Ireland have resulted in the introduction of the Computer Science (CS) subject in Post‐Primary (PP) Education. CS has always been conceived digitally and the Digital Learning Experiences (DLE) enacted through its curriculum are strongly interconnected to the opportunities and limitations offered by Digital Spaces (DS). However, key challenges have been identified for the successful implementation of CSE, from teachers' digital competencies and educational strategies in the classroom to learners' varying experiences of CSE. Through a systematic literature review of the educational policies and practices in Ireland's Educational System, this paper documents the digital evolution from the 1960s accounting for the CS curriculum. The literature review identifies key themes in how DS have been conceptualised through CSE, responding to learners' needs and teachers' skills and competencies, informed by emerging societal demands by providing evidence on the disparity between educational policy and practice for DS. Building upon the identified themes, this paper emphasises the importance of the design and implementation of DLE in DS such as the CS subject that considers historical lessons learned to respond to the uncertainties of the digital future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In computer science and engineering education, teaching PC interfacing courses and laboratory experiments are strongly required. PC interfacing is the field of developing or simulating real/virtual solutions for exchanging data/commands between PC and the outer world of sensors and actuators. Recently, virtual experiments and Labs have been adopted by engineering educators to preclude the physical presence of students and tutors and to provide effective skills acquisition and hands‐on experience in a virtual manner. High‐cost LabVIEW from National Instruments company is the dominant platform to develop, execute, and animate virtual PC interfacing experiments similar to real ones. This paper presents a toolchain, the course contents, and virtual experiments that cover many different PC interfacing technologies such as UART, SPI, RS232, USB, SD card interfacing, and wireless GSM/GPRS. The virtual nature of VFST toolchain refers to enabling the students to design, animate, and run their prototypes or solutions inside only PC programs without the need to build physical or real ones until making sure of their prototypes' functionality. The main aim of the VFST platform is to make students able to develop C# based applications and to implement solutions with an aesthetic similar to LabVIEW capabilities to become a low‐cost alternative of it. VFST consists of a group of free‐of‐charge and third‐party software programs such as VSPD, Virtual USB driver, WinImage, and Real‐Term alongside with Proteus simulator and C# programming language. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the benefits and effectiveness of VFST. Findings are collected via feedback responses using an online questionnaire survey. These findings clarify that the student cohort is, in general, supportive that VFST Lab's content and virtual experiments have a considerable effect on their career after and before their graduation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much attention in constructionism has focused on designing tools and activities that support learners in designing fully finished and functional applications and artefacts to be shared with others. But helping students learn to debug their applications often takes on a surprisingly more instructionist stance by giving them checklists, teaching them strategies or providing them with test programmes. The idea of designing bugs for learning—or debugging by design—makes learners agents of their own learning and, more importantly, of making and solving mistakes. In this paper, we report on our implementation of 'Debugging by Design' activities in a high school classroom over a period of 8 hours as part of an electronic textiles unit. Students were tasked to craft the electronic textile artefacts with problems or bugs for their peers to solve. Drawing on observations and interviews, we answer the following research questions: (1) How did students participate in making bugs for others? (2) What did students gain from designing and solving bugs for others? In the discussion, we address the opportunities and challenges that designing personally and socially meaningful failure artefacts provides for becoming objects‐to‐think‐with and objects‐to‐share‐with in student learning and promoting new directions in constructionism. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic There is substantial evidence for the benefits of learning programming and debugging in the context of constructing personally relevant and complex artefacts, including electronic textiles.Related, work on productive failure has demonstrated that providing learners with strategically difficult problems (in which they 'fail') equips them to better handle subsequent challenges.What this paper adds In this paper, we argue that designing bugs or 'failure artefacts' is as much a constructionist approach to learning as is designing fully functional artefacts.We consider how 'failure artefacts' can be both objects‐to‐learn‐with and objects‐to‐share‐with.We introduce the concept of 'Debugging by Design' (DbD) as a means to expand application of constructionism to the context of developing 'failure artifacts'.Implications for practice and/or policy We conceptualise a new way to enable and empower students in debugging—by designing creative, multimodal buggy projects for others to solve.The DbD approach may support students in near‐transfer of debugging and the beginning of a more systematic approach to debugging in later projects and should be explored in other domains beyond e‐textiles.New studies should explore learning, design and teaching that empower students to design bugs in projects in mischievous and creative ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education 4.0 is a recently introduced concept focused on innovation, novelty, use of technology and connections with employment and industry. In particular, in engineering disciplines like computer science (CS) it is essential that educators keep up to date with industry developments. Indeed, how CS educators effectively design and implement innovative teaching and learning deserves more systematic attention. This study aims to catalogue and synthesise learning design approaches to teaching and learning within CS: (1) Which innovative pedagogic approaches are used in teaching of CS? (2) Which approaches align with Education 4.0? (3) What skills and competences do educators require to align CS teaching with Education 4.0? Our systematic literature review (SLR) included CS papers published between 2016 and 2020. Two hundred and thirty‐one studies were identified of which 66 were included in the final phase, which were coded by a multidisciplinary team. The findings indicated that many CS educators included Education 4.0 learning design elements. We found a clear distinctive three‐cluster solution: (1) EDU4 light, (2) project‐based/hands‐on learning and (3) full EDU4 (refer to Reference [7] conceptualisation, while Education 4.0 refers to our own definition [Reference 71]. These findings suggest three broad flavours when designing innovative CS practices, which might help educators align their practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the rationales underpinning the introduction of Computer Science (CS) into school curricula and examines the ways in which educational systems have responded to these growing calls. In outlining the possible ways that educational systems can respond to this demand, the paper makes use of a conceptual framework through which the various possibilities for the provision of CS in school curricula can be categorised. The paper analyses and discusses possible modes of provision identifying the benefits and drawbacks of different approaches. Through this development, the paper aims to raise wider questions about the long‐term positioning of CS within the curriculum and draws particular attention to the need for greater consideration of provision at lower secondary level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of the literature, including a meta-analysis, about the effectiveness of the use of Alice software in programming learning when compared to the use of a conventional programming language. Our research included studies published between the years 2000 and 2014 in the main databases. We gathered 232 papers. Taking into account the selection criteria to make the meta-analysis, we retained six papers with a quasi-experimental design, with 464 participants in total. To combine the results we used the random effect model. It resulted in an effect size of 0.54 (Cohen's d) with a confidence interval between 0.34 and 0.74. We concluded that until now there have been few experimental results on the effectiveness of Alice programming language to introduce students in learning how to program. The results we found were the expression of different experimental treatments and distinguished teaching methods which made the comparison of the results obtained more subtle. However, the existing experimental results that were submitted to the meta-analysis allowed us to assume with a certain margin of safety that a teaching strategy that uses Alice should obtain more effective results than the use of a conventional programming language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International changes in policy and curricula (notably recent developments in England) have led to a focus on the role of computing education in the early years. As interest in the potential of computing education has increased, there has been a proliferation of programming tools designed for young children. While these changes are broadly to be welcomed, the pace of change has arguably led to more attention to the tools than to key questions about pedagogy. This paper proposes three areas of research (Logo; computational thinking; and teaching STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics) that may inform computing education for young children and suggests that a greater focus on thinking skills and connections to manifestations of computers in the real world is needed. Above all, the paper calls for an informed debate about the trend towards introducing computing education to children in the early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Skill integration is vital in students' mastery development and is especially prominent in developing code tracing skills which are foundational to programming, an increasingly important area in the current STEM education. However, instructional design to support skill integration in learning technologies has been limited. Objectives: The current work presents the development and empirical evaluation of instructional design targeting students' difficulties in code tracing particularly in integrating component skills in the Trace Table Tutor (T3), an intelligent tutoring system. Methods: Beyond the instructional features of active learning, step‐level support, and individualized problem selection of intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), the instructional design of T3 (e.g., hints, problem types, problem selection) was optimized to target skill integration based on a domain model where integrative skills were represented as combinations of component skills. We conducted an experimental study in a university‐level introductory Python programming course and obtained three findings. Results and Conclusions: First, the instructional features of the ITS technology support effective learning of code tracing, as evidenced by significant learning gains (medium‐to‐large effect sizes). Second, performance data supports the existence of integrative skills beyond component skills. Third, an instructional design focused on integrative skills yields learning benefits beyond a design without such focus, such as improving performance efficiency (medium‐to‐large effect sizes). Major Takeaways: Our work demonstrates the value of designing for skill integration in learning technologies and the effectiveness of the ITS technology for computing education, as well as provides general implications for designing learning technologies to foster robust learning. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter?: Skill integration is vital in students' mastery development, and is especially prominent in developing coding tracing skills.Coding tracing skills are foundational to programming, an increasingly important area in the current STEM education, yet many novice students struggle with code tracing.Instructional design to support skill integration in learning technologies has been limited.One of the most effective technologies for skill mastery, intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), is underused or only used in a partial form in programming education. What our paper adds to this?: We present the development and empirical evaluation of instructional design targeting students' difficulties in code tracing particularly in integrating component skills in an ITS, the Trace Table Tutor.The instructional features of the ITS technology (e.g., active learning, step‐level support, individualized problem selection) support effective learning of code tracing.Students' performance data supports the existence of integrative skills beyond component skills.An instructional design that provides deliberate practice and focused practice on integrative skills yields learning benefits beyond a design without such features. The implications of study findings for practitioners: Designing for skill integration is valuable and should receive more attention in designing learning technologies to foster robust learning.The instructional features of full‐scale ITSs are effective in supporting learning and merit further application in learning technologies in computing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for a re‐examination of the nature and goals of broad computing education initiatives. Instead of starting with specific values or goals, we instead begin by considering various desired endpoints of computing instruction and then work backward to reason about what form learning activities might take and what are the underlying values and principles that support learners in reaching these endpoints. The result of this exercise is a push for rethinking the form of contemporary computing education with an eye toward more diverse, equitable and meaningful endpoints. With a focus on the role that constructionist‐focused pedagogies and designs can play in supporting these endpoints, we examine four distinct cases and the endpoints they support. This paper is not intended to encompass all the possible alternate endpoints for computer science education; rather, this work seeks to start a conversation around the nature of and need for alternate endpoints, as a means to re‐evaluate the current tools and curricula to prepare learners for a future of active and empowered computing‐literate citizens. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic There is a growing call for computing education to be a core educational component.Computing education traditionally has a narrow goal of training people for programming jobs.Computing education fails to connect with students underrepresented in STEM.What this paper adds An argument for why we need more and diverse endpoints to computing education.That many possible endpoints for computing education can be more inclusive, just and equitable than software engineering.Constructionism is a particularly useful paradigm for approaching and supporting alternate endpoints.Implications for practice and policy Helps reframe the goals of computing education, to truly be "for all."Provides a set of cases for how this reframing can be achieved.Gives policy new lenses for understanding, evaluating and implementing computing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the production scheduling and inventory management in a closed‐loop supply chain that recycles both high‐quality and low‐quality cores and makes products using cores and new raw materials. The manufacturing/remanufacturing supply chain consists of a vendor and a buyer, and they collaborate under a consignment stock (CS) agreement. We investigate and compare three operation policies under the CS agreement, covering continuous and intermittent production manners and shipments of equal and unequal batch sizes. For each operation policy, we develop a mixed integer nonlinear programming model to jointly optimize the production sequence of two classes of cores, production cycle length, shipment frequency, and shipment batch sizes, with the objective of minimizing the cost rate. By analyzing the respective decisions and conducting an extensive numerical study with various scenarios, we explore the advantages and applications of each operation policy. Based on our research findings, we provide general guidelines and criteria for operation policy selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative assessment is considered to be helpful in students' learning support and teaching design. Following Aufschnaiter's and Alonzo's framework, formative assessment practices of teachers can be subdivided into three practices: eliciting evidence, interpreting evidence and responding. Since students' conceptions are judged to be important for meaningful learning across disciplines, teachers are required to assess their students' conceptions. The focus of this article lies on the discussion of learning analytics for supporting the assessment of students' conceptions in class. The existing and potential contributions of learning analytics are discussed related to the named formative assessment framework in order to enhance the teachers' options to consider individual students' conceptions. We refer to findings from biology and computer science education on existing assessment tools and identify limitations and potentials with respect to the assessment of students' conceptions. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Students' conceptions are considered to be important for learning processes, but interpreting evidence for learning with respect to students' conceptions is challenging for teachers.Assessment tools have been developed in different educational domains for teaching practice.Techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning have been applied for automated assessment of specific aspects of learning.What does the paper add Findings on existing assessment tools from two educational domains are summarised and limitations with respect to assessment of students' conceptions are identified.Relevent data that needs to be analysed for insights into students' conceptions is identified from an educational perspective.Potential contributions of learning analytics to support the challenging task to elicit students' conceptions are discussed.Implications for practice and/or policy Learning analytics can enhance the eliciting of students' conceptions.Based on the analysis of existing works, further exploration and developments of analysis techniques for unstructured text and multimodal data are desirable to support the eliciting of students' conceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Live streaming platforms like Twitch.tv count millions of viewers and performers, pointing to novel practices and interactions. Instructional applications of this phenomenon are rising with thematic channels and shows aimed at teaching and debating a variety of subjects ranging from art to programming. However, few research publications have specifically explored trends in pedagogical strategies and learning behaviours of viewing audiences. This study responded to this need by analysing computer science shows on Twitch.tv. A total of 40 hours of live streaming were analysed within a Community of Inquiry framework using the concepts of social affordances, computational thinking, and teaching style. Data collected from both expert and novice streamers included streamers' actions, on‐screen activity, and online discussions. Results pointed to specific tactics employed by both performers and viewers for exploring computer science issues and dynamics together, with instances of peer‐tutoring, construed learning, and significant transparency, even when top‐down instruction was staged. Practitioners notesWhat is already known about this topic Live streaming is a popular media practice all around the world, with Twitch.tv as the leading hosting platform.A rising number of live streaming shows are focusing on education and learning topics, from STEM to art.What this paper adds A first exploration of instructional streaming focused on computer science education.An analysis of best practices in instructional streaming in terms of community building, teaching style, and computational thinking processes.A better understanding of how communities of inquiry can be hosted on Twitch.tv.Implications for practice and/or policy Practitioners can harness this study's results for informing better educational streaming.Educators may refer to this article's highlights for selecting and evaluating educational streaming shows.Policy makers will be able to use this article's insights for monitoring and re‐applying effective computer science activities in other educational environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Affinity Research Group model is an attractive vehicle for involving undergraduates in research, retaining them, and fostering their interest in higher education. Using this model, students are given opportunities to develop, employ, and integrate knowledge and skills required for research with knowledge and skills required for cooperative work. Potential adopters of the model often inquire about the feasibility of applying the model in a field like computer science, in which it often is the case that a student must have a solid academic foundation in order to be involved in research. This paper addresses this question by illustrating how the model has been applied to computer science research projects that involve students with different skill levels and experience. In particular, the paper presents example structured tasks and related activities that demonstrate how students develop domain expertise, gain an understanding and appreciation of the research process and its practice, and acquire technical, team, communication, problem-solving, and higher-level thinking skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, many AI initiatives (eg, AI4K12, CS for All) developed standards and frameworks as guidance for educators to create accessible and engaging Artificial Intelligence (AI) learning experiences for K‐12 students. These efforts revealed a significant need to prepare youth to gain a fundamental understanding of how intelligence is created, applied, and its potential to perpetuate bias and unfairness. This study contributes to the growing interest in K‐12 AI education by examining student learning of modelling real‐world text data. Four students from an Advanced Placement computer science classroom at a public high school participated in this study. Our qualitative analysis reveals that the students developed nuanced and in‐depth understandings of how text classification models—a type of AI application—are trained. Specifically, we found that in modelling texts, students: (1) drew on their social experiences and cultural knowledge to create predictive features, (2) engineered predictive features to address model errors, (3) described model learning patterns from training data and (4) reasoned about noisy features when comparing models. This study contributes to an initial understanding of student learning of modelling unstructured data and offers implications for scaffolding in‐depth reasoning about model decision making. Practitioner notes: What is already known about this topic Scholarly attention has turned to examining Artificial Intelligence (AI) literacy in K‐12 to help students understand the working mechanism of AI technologies and critically evaluate automated decisions made by computer models.While efforts have been made to engage students in understanding AI through building machine learning models with data, few of them go in‐depth into teaching and learning of feature engineering, a critical concept in modelling data.There is a need for research to examine students' data modelling processes, particularly in the little‐researched realm of unstructured data. What this paper adds Results show that students developed nuanced understandings of models learning patterns in data for automated decision making.Results demonstrate that students drew on prior experience and knowledge in creating features from unstructured data in the learning task of building text classification models.Students needed support in performing feature engineering practices, reasoning about noisy features and exploring features in rich social contexts that the data set is situated in. Implications for practice and/or policy It is important for schools to provide hands‐on model building experiences for students to understand and evaluate automated decisions from AI technologies.Students should be empowered to draw on their cultural and social backgrounds as they create models and evaluate data sources.To extend this work, educators should consider opportunities to integrate AI learning in other disciplinary subjects (ie, outside of computer science classes). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the effect of applying gamification in a course for undergraduate computer science students in the Faculty of Informatics at Kaunas University of Technology. The course teaches Unified Modelling Language (UML) and its application in the Unified Process for software development. In this paper, the gamified course metamodel is presented, and it specifies a level‐based course structure as well as other gamification elements used in the course, such as points and other types of rewards (coins, items, and badges), the leaderboard, content locking and trading. The gamified course was implemented on Moodle platform, and the experiment was carried out during spring semester 2018. The analysis of students' grades confirms the hypothesis which states that students' grades can increase as a result of applying gamification to their learning process. The results of students' questionnaire (based on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory scale) also confirm the hypothesis which states that gamification can improve students' motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 crisis is having a significant impact on the quality of life and future of young people; it can also lead to disruption in education. A disruption would pose a severe threat to the entire society in the postcrisis period. Therefore, educational institutions must respond quickly and ensure the continuity of the educational processes. Our research goal has been to develop and implement a model enabling a rapid transition from the traditional to the distance learning model in a state of emergency. Our focus has been on conceiving technical, organizational, and pedagogical changes that educational organizations need to implement to enable different interaction methods, ensure continuity, and provide high‐quality education. We have defined and implemented a model, which is described in detail in this paper, thus giving guidelines for a rapid transition to distance learning, which is not restricted to the crisis times only. We have evaluated our approach by monitoring the IT solutions and surveying students and teachers at the School of Computing, Union University of Belgrade. The results indicate the high satisfaction of these participants in the educational processes. They imply the acceptability of prolonged distance learning, if needed, and embrace the hybrid education model for the next generation of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correction of exercises in programming courses is a laborious task that has traditionally been performed in a manual way. This situation, in turn, delays the access by students to feedback that can contribute significantly to their training as future professionals. Over the years, several approaches have been proposed to automate the assessment of students' programs. Static analysis is a known technique that can partially simulate the process of manual code review performed by lecturers. As such, it is a plausible option to assess whether students' solutions meet the requirements imposed on the assignments. However, implementing a personalized analysis beyond the rules included in existing tools may be a complex task for the lecturer without a mechanism that guides the work. In this paper, we present a method to provide automated and specific feedback to immediately inform students about their mistakes in programming courses. To that end, we developed the CAC++ library, which enables constructing tailored static analysis programs for C/C++ practices. The library allows for great flexibility and personalization of verifications to adjust them to each particular task, overcoming the limitations of most of the existing assessment tools. Our approach to providing specific feedback has been evaluated for a period of three academic years in a course related to object‐oriented programming. The library allowed lecturers to reduce the size of the static analysis programs developed for this course. During this period, the academic results improved and undergraduates positively valued the aid offered when undertaking the implementation of assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe our efforts in the deliberate creation of a community of practice of researchers in computer science education (CSEd). We understand community of practice in the sense in which Wenger describes it, whereby the community is characterized by mutual engagement in a joint enterprise that gives rise to a shared repertoire of knowledge, artefacts, and practices. We first identify CSEd as a research field in which no shared paradigm exists, and then we describe the Bootstrapping project, its metaphor, structure, rationale, and delivery, as designed to create a community of practice of CSEd researchers. Features of other projects are also outlined that have similar aims of capacity building in disciplinary-specific pedagogic enquiry. A theoretically derived framework for evaluating the success of endeavours of this type is then presented, and we report the results from an empirical study. We conclude with four open questions for our project and others like it: Where is the locus of a community of practice? Who are the core members? Do capacity-building models transfer to other disciplines? Can our theoretically motivated measures of success apply to other projects of the same nature? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new approach to teaching programming to undergraduate computer science students. A dedicated Arduino board along with custom application programming interface (API) was introduced into programming classes with a view to strengthen students' engagement and improving the attractiveness of the course. The students were presented with basic functionalities of the board, which gave them a possibility to accomplish their own projects—typically video games—without any background in electronics. The level of engagement of the participants was observed by the tutors during classes and also reviewed based on questionnaires filled by 347 first‐, second‐, and third‐year undergraduates. The results indicated that the proposed approach was well received by nearly 80%, while nearly 75% of the participants expressed a wish to continue their Computer Science education using Arduino. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The addition of computing to England's National Curriculum was welcomed as a much‐needed modernization of the country's digital skills curriculum, replacing a poorly regarded ICT program of study with an industry‐supported scheme of computer science, robotics and computational thinking. This paper will demonstrate how teachers have acted as gatekeepers to block a curriculum that they view as narrow, difficult to teach and in conflict with their beliefs and practices as educational professionals. Extensive qualitative data were collected through classroom observations, teacher and student interviews and student artifact creation in four state‐maintained primary school classrooms to explore how teachers acted agentically to minimize or altogether reject a legally mandated curriculum that clashed with their local, professional knowledge. Analysis of this data was supported by official documents and personal accounts of the creation of the computing program of study, which highlight a discourse of economic anxiety and post‐imperialist nostalgia on the part of the curriculum's designers. This study will illuminate the significant influence that teachers wield as gatekeepers for subject content, with the ability to reject digital technology curricula even when it is supported by industry and mandated by law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incorporation of advanced information and communication technologies into the field of education has made the design and deployment of courses and instructional units more and more complicated. In order to support such complex task, methods and techniques have been proposed in the last years for the standardization, formalization and modelling of learning scenarios. Thus, several Visual Instructional Design Languages (VIDL) have been developed, with few of them giving an adequate and complete support for group learning processes. In this paper, we outline a domain‐specific language (DSL) for the modelling of collaborative learning scenarios. This DSL is called Learn‐CIAN. This notation has been validated by a sample of the students of Computer Science and Education degrees such that we could obtain a first view about the understandability and acceptance of this language from potential final users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General computational software systems (such as Mathcad, Matlab, Techplot, LabView, Fluent, EES (Engineering Equation Solver), and Mathematica) with great flexibility are available for use on personal computers. This paper examines the application of one of these systems, EES, to a number of preliminary thermal sciences calculations, being a generalized EES. This software is a powerful equation solver with built-in functions and property tables for thermodynamics and transport properties as well as automatic unit checking capability. Application examples include close system of mix adiabatic of ideals gases and simple and generalized counter-flow cooling tower system. This program has demonstrated to be a useful tool that offers great flexibility and generality as well as congruence with problem formulation. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 691-697, 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many students need assistance in debugging to achieve progress when they learn to write computer programs. Face‐to‐face interactions with individual students to give feedback on their programs, although definitely effective in facilitating their learning, are becoming difficult to achieve with ever‐growing class sizes. This paper proposes a novel approach to providing practical automated debugging advice to support students' learning, based on the strong relationship observed between common wrong outputs and the corresponding common bugs in students' programs. To implement the approach, we designed a generic system architecture and process, and developed a tool called Virtual Debugging Advisor (ViDA) that was put into use in classes in a university. To evaluate the effectiveness of ViDA, a controlled experiment and a survey were conducted with first year engineering students in an introductory computer programming course. Results are encouraging, showing that (a) a higher proportion of students could correct their faulty code themselves with ViDA enabled, (b) an overwhelming majority of respondents found ViDA helpful for their learning of programming, and (c) most respondents would like to keep ViDA enabled when they practice writing programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper deals with the problem of overcoming difficulties and raising the motivation of novice engineering students studying programming. We consider this an important factor for engineering education in general and for programming of embedded devices, as well as for calculations and modeling in the field of scientific computing in particular. We present a case study on how novice engineering students can be motivated to study structured programming and coding in C using game programming in the App Inventor environment. The study is based on the authors’ practical teaching experience in the Applied Sciences University for novice programmers, with students of the Technology of Smart Devices specialty, as well as the authors’ long‐time research activities in teaching Computer Science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a fast and stable method for 2D shape deformation based on rigid square matching. Our method utilizes uniform quadrangular control meshes for 2D shapes and tries to maintain the rigidity of each square in the control mesh during user manipulation. A rigid shape matching method is performed to find an optimal pure rotational transformation for each square in the control mesh. An iterative solver is proposed to compute the final deformation result for the entire control mesh by minimizing the difference between the deformed vertices and their counterparts in the neighboring rigid square. The deformation result on the 2D shape is as rigid as possible and the details of the shape are preserved well. As extensions, we present a shape-aware splitting method to improve the deformation effect for coarse meshes and a simple sketch-based clustering method for skeletal deformation. Experiments with various 2D shapes show that our method is efficient and easy to use, and can provide physically plausible result for shapes of objects in real world. Therefore, our shape deformation method is especially suitable for applications in cartoon character animation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decade, single‐board computers (SBCs) have been employed more frequently in engineering and computer science (CS) at both technical and educational levels. These devices are of importance to educators and students due to several factors such as the versatility, the low cost, and the possibility to enhance the learning process through technology. However, the implications, possibilities, and constraints of these devices in engineering and CS education have not been explored in detail. In this systematic literature review, we explore how the SBCs are employed in engineering and CS and what educational results are derived from their usage in the period 2010–2020 at tertiary education level. For this, 154 studies were selected out of n = 605 collected from the academic databases Ei Compendex, Inspec, and ERIC. The analysis was carried out in two phases, identifying, for example, areas of application, learning outcomes, and students' and researchers' perceptions. The results of the review mainly indicate the following aspects: (1) The areas of laboratories and e‐learning, computing education, robotics, Internet of Things, and persons with disabilities gather the studies in the review. (2) Researchers highlight the importance of the SBCs to transform the curricula in engineering and CS for the students to learn complex topics through experimentation in hands‐on activities. (3) The typical cognitive learning outcomes reported by the authors are the improvement of the students' grades and the technical skills regarding the topics in the courses. Concerning the affective learning outcomes, the increase of interest, motivation, and engagement is commonly reported by the authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT With the emergence of computers, literatures of water distribution network (WDN), and application of computer-aided programs for modeling WDNs have been significantly improved. Although MATLAB and Excel spreadsheet provide suitable facilities for both academic and practical purposes, the comprehensive application of these programs in WDN analysis has not been addressed. In this paper, the step-by-step implementation of three Q-based methods is presented for solving WDNs using these programs. In order to focus more on the educational aspects of computer application, a simple pipe network is analyzed using these Q-based methods. However, as basics of the implementation are sufficiently covered, the provided codes can be improved to analyze more complicated pipe networks. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 25:277-289, 2017; View this article online at ; DOI [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes educational software for visualization and finite automata simulation. The system was developed in Java programming language, and its main purpose is learning process improvement. Using this software, finite automata can be defined in a graphical editor in the form of a state diagram, or by defining the transition function using the transition table. Upon defining an automaton, it is possible to run a visual simulation of the automaton operation for an arbitrary input string, whereby a textual description of the automaton simulation is also obtained. Furthermore, the system allows for conversion of regular expressions to deterministic finite automata and nondeterministic finite automata. The simulation of Thompson's construction algorithm is implemented, so that transformation of a regular expression to the corresponding NFA can be monitored in a step‐by‐step process. The quantitative analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of the simulator are based on a survey of undergraduate students at two universities. The majority of students found the tool a useful means for better understanding and mastering of finite automata concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this paper, we introduce the analysis and the design of a new web-based interactive software tool, called WebUbu, which has been developed to serve the undergraduate students' needs related to Linux Operating System (OS) issues. The aim of this software development was twofold: on the one hand to familiarize students with Ubuntu OS environment and, on the other hand to promote the self-learning related to this Linux distribution, in the context of everyday OS classrooms. WbUbu software can be used only for interactive demonstration of features of Linux during lectures and to support instructors for evaluation of students' skills in the lab. For other tasks such as long term studying of Linux-based OS's 'physical' Linux must be used. Our software is essentially a website that simulates Ubuntu operating system inside a web browser. Undergraduate students can easily explore both graphical user interface (GUI) and command line of Ubuntu's environment. Additionally, students can ascertain the acquired knowledge through an automated examination process and learn from their mistakes as they shown automatically by the software in real time. Educator can manage students' performances that are stored in a database system and assess the individual's cognitive progress resulting from the software contribution. However, WebUbu will give students the chance for practice and self assessment when they not involved in the University's educational process or 'physical' Linux is unavailable. That software intends to complement the existing teaching and learning methods concerning Operating Systems. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 24:313-319, 2016; View this article online at ; DOI 10.1002/cae.21706 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of computational thinking (CT) development has increased during the last decade. There is a need to understand what to teach from computational thinking perspectives, as well as what types of activities and learning content topics to use in the classroom. Current students' generation is looking for engaging, motivating learning activities with immediate results and feedback. The paper presents the design process of the strategy for CT abilities development. The proposed strategy has been implemented in practice identify its suitability for successful CT development within Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education. The strategy is accompanied by teaching materials for computational making activities with Arduino. The proposed strategy contributes to Engineering education as an essential part of STEAM and usually not included in the basic and secondary school curriculum as a separate subject. Pre- and postsurvey were conducted with basic school students to identify the effect of the strategy implementation on the development of CT abilities. The findings of this study showed a statistically significant increase in CT literacy in 14 abilities from seven dimensions: computing artifact, decomposition, abstraction, algorithm, communication and collaboration, computing and society, and evaluation. The implications of this study include the practical usage of the strategy in plan class activities for STEAM subjects in basic school to develop particular CT abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author demonstrates how the GSE course was executed related to each level of the Bloom's taxonomy. It was observed that Bloom's taxonomy can play a vital role in order to effectively design and deliver a GSE course. Overall, the six levels of Bloom's cognitive domain were helpful in transforming students learning from the knowledge level to the evaluation level. However, it was observed that the knowledge level is not appropriate for higher calibre students because the content used in the knowledge level is often referred to as simple. The comprehension level seemed appropriate for all levels of students as they were able to produce different solutions based on their understanding of the problem domain. Many international students had problems with the application level as they were unable to apply the concepts and theories in the laboratories. For the analysis level, some students had difficulties in breaking down the bigger problem into smaller components. Students had mixed responses to the synthesis level. Students had some minor problems in the evaluation level. However, it was observed that if Bloom's taxonomy is used with other available teaching guidelines, the overall design and delivery of different courses can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tools for automatic grading programming assignments, also known as Online Judges, have been widely used to support computer science (CS) courses. Nevertheless, few studies have used these tools to acquire and analyse interaction data to better understand the students' performance and behaviours, often due to data availability or inadequate granularity. To address this problem, we propose an Online Judge called CodeBench, which allows for fine‐grained data collection of student interactions, at the level of, eg, keystrokes, number of submissions, and grades. We deployed CodeBench for 3 years (2016–18) and collected data from 2058 students from 16 introductory computer science (CS1) courses, on which we have carried out fine‐grained learning analytics, towards early detection of effective/ineffective behaviours regarding learning CS concepts. Results extract clear behavioural classes of CS1 students, significantly differentiated both semantically and statistically, enabling us to better explain how student behaviours during programming have influenced learning outcomes. Finally, we also identify behaviours that can guide novice students to improve their learning performance, which can be used for interventions. We believe this work is a step forward towards enhancing Online Judges and helping teachers and students improve their CS1 teaching/learning practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instructors find it challenging to teach the compiler construction course, because the course introduces students to several abstract concepts and complex algorithms. Simulation tools enable students to visualize the theoretical concepts, give them a platform for experimentation, and provide them accurate results of their experiments instantaneously. This paper offers a review of 16 simulation systems suitable for teaching the compiler construction course. Evaluation criteria have been defined, and they have been used in the process of evaluation of the selected simulators. The results of the evaluation will be useful to instructors when choosing a simulator suitable for teaching their courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an active learning framework to describe modeling knowledge on object-oriented design methods and evaluate students' models. It helps students learn the methods with feedbacks. Modeling knowledge and feedbacks are specified in simple rules by instructors. Given the knowledge, our framework validates models and gives feedbacks for violations. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 20: 400-409, 2012 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents JAVENGA, which is an acronym for JAva-based Visualization Environment for Network and Graph Algorithms. It is a new visualization software for educational purposes. It includes visualizations of many well-known graph and network algorithms. However, besides simple algorithms the tool also illustrates a visualization of a quite complex one, such as the Network Simplex algorithm. The recommended tool includes a graph editor where directed and undirected graphs can be drawn, it allows users to give input to an algorithm and then see its visualization in a user-controlled way, and finally it incorporates a solution window where one can see the values of variables at each step of algorithm execution. JAVENGA, as its name states, has been implemented in Java language and it can be run either as an applet or as a Java application. Further, one can execute the program either locally or remotely via the Web. It can be used by instructors as auxiliary teaching material in the context of a graph theory or network optimization course. Besides, instructors can use the tool to grade students' assignments or exams. Students can also use the software in a self-learning approach. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 20: 255-268, 2012 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of computer network technologies increased the importance of network professional's education and resulted in extensive research in the field of computer science education. Virtual networking laboratories have been very popular in the past few years, especially for training and education of network professionals. These laboratories are emulated computer network environments, based on virtualization technology, and have a number of advantages comparing to classical laboratories. Even with a large number of developed laboratory platforms, there are a small number of attempts to evaluate these systems and to find out how effective they are. This paper presents an approach to the evaluation of the virtual networking laboratory, primarily by the evaluation of its exercises used for a computer-networking course at the university. We are going to employ an approach based on the relation of indiscernibility and the rough set theory in order to produce a model based on if-then rules, starting from low-level data. This model helps to identify the most important parts and eventual mistakes in the evaluated exercises, creating the possibility for their improvement and overall student's achievement as well. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 20: 29-37, 2012 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fault links represent relationships between the types of code faults, or defects, and the types of components in which faults are detected. For example, our prior work validated that a fault link exists between Controller components and Control/Logic faults (such as unreachable code). Fault link information can guide code reviews, walkthroughs, testing, maintenance, and can advise fault seeding. In this paper, we use fault links to augment code reviews. Two experiments were undertaken to evaluate the usefulness of fault links, one with 26 Computer Science students and another with 24 software engineering professionals. The first experiment showed that fault link information assisted in finding more total defects and more 'hard to detect' defects, in the same amount of time, in a Java component of an online course management application. The experiment was repeated with professionals, adding a second Java component from the same application. For the second experiment, more total defects were found by the participants using fault link information for one of the two components and more hard to detect defects were found, in the same amount of time, in both Java components. The group using fault link information for code walkthroughs found, on average, 1.7-2 times more faults and 2-3 times more hard faults than the control group. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the number of courses offered online increases rapidly, it is important for teachers and institutions to identify specific learner characteristics of successful online students. This paper reports on a study that compared an online group of freshmen computer science majors with an equivalent on-campus group to find if their individual learning styles play a role in the selection of course delivery mode (online or face to face) and in their academic achievement. No significant statistical differences were detected in learning styles and learning performance between the two groups. Implications for teaching practice and design of learning activities that resulted from this study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) developing countries can bridge socio-economic divides and empower the marginalised, including women and minority groups. This paper considers four dimensions of empowerment—psychological, social, educational and economic—and assesses benefits to each following computer education and usage of computer and Internet technology. Data were collected from 155 young Muslim women and men studying in three computer training centres in Mumbai, and a gender-based comparison was conducted. Figures for computer ownership and home Internet connection were low for the entire sample, and the training centres and cybercafes were important points of access for females and males, respectively. In terms of perceived empowerment, young women reported higher gains than men from computer learning when combined with ICT use. Thus, despite the existence of a gender-based digital divide, when bridged, ICTs showed potential as an equalising force between the genders. In light of the above, policy measures to widen access and provide subsidised training are suggested. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic textures are composed of spatially multi-scale and temporally coherent visual signals. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for multi-resolution parametric synthesis (MPS) of manipulative dynamic textures, including learning, analysis, and motion manipulation of layered feature spaces. The proposed approach separates the motions into different scales or frequencies, and the dynamic feature spaces are analyzed in modeling and then mapped to a global coordinate system to expose the multi-scale structures. Our approach emphasizes the importance of fine-scale data appearing more informative, while coarse signals are less focused. The synthesized dynamic textures using our MPS approach are strongly enhanced in dynamic appearance than the single-scale LDS model, and also flexible in manipulating the decomposed feature spaces for creating different dynamic textures of the real world. Our experimental results showed the more faithful synthesized dynamic textures from input short videos, and their manipulative controls by simple editing of feature space basis, not only the whole video data. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose an approach, which allows the users to synthesize cartoon clips according to the perspective of the background image. In order to construct the cartoons smoothly, the character's edge distance and motion direction distance are demonstrated to be the factors affecting the human perception in similarity evaluation, and utilized in cartoon clips synthesis. When applying the generated cartoons to the background image, in which the perspective exists, the size of the character is coordinated according to the scaling factor calculated from the vanishing line. The experiment results demonstrate that our approach can synthesize the cartoon clips more smoothly compared with other single frame reusing strategies. The generated cartoons, which are applied to the background image, can be accepted by the human perception well. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a multi-institutional study that used a repeated single-criterion card sort to investigate graduating computer science students' knowledge of programming concepts. The study seeks to improve computer science instruction by gaining insight into how graduating students retain and assimilate introductory programming knowledge into their broader understanding of the discipline. A total of 291 card sorts was elicited from 65 undergraduate students in their final year of study at eight colleges and universities throughout the USA. To fully exploit the rich qualitative and quantitative aspects of the card sort data, an integrative analysis process was used that combined content analysis with two measures, normalized minimum spanning tree and edit distance, both developed specifically to analyze card sort data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports research on whether online delivery performs as well as traditional lecture delivery for a computer science course at North Carolina State University. The comparisons made are for two large sections of the course for which almost the only difference was that one section attended on-campus lectures and the other did not. Where significant differences in outcomes appear for students who completed the course, they favor the online students. However, online students who started the course were less likely to complete it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the ability of a platform to design its marketplace to promote competition, improve consumer surplus, and increase its own payoff. We consider demand‐steering rules that reward firms that cut prices with additional exposure to consumers. We examine the impact of these rules both in theory and by using simulations with artificial intelligence pricing algorithms (specifically Q‐learning algorithms, which are commonly used in computer science). Our theoretical results indicate that these policies (which require little information to implement) can have strongly beneficial effects, even when sellers are infinitely patient and seek to collude. Similarly, our simulations suggest that platform design can benefit consumers and the platform, but that achieving these gains may require policies that condition on past behavior and treat sellers in a nonneutral fashion. These more sophisticated policies disrupt the ability of algorithms to rotate demand and split industry profits, leading to low prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are the latest e-learning initiative to attain widespread popularity in the world. Thus, it is highly required to have a throughout analysis of learning in MOOCs, from theoretical to practical. Our primary goal is to take a detailed and comprehensive investigation into the learning behaviors in MOOCs, as well as to identify issues that have not yet to be adequately resolved. We employed commonly used educational data mining methodologies to analyze and interpret the behaviors in a computer science course based on the questionnaire survey data and daily activity data. We find most of the students could be divided into several groups that are coincident with their learning styles. Moreover, we can easily predict students' learning styles based on their learning behaviors. This finding means the learning style could be a factor to indicate students' learning behaviors, or even measure whether a student is appropriate to learn via MOOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated program assessment systems have been widely adopted in many universities. Many of these systems judge the correctness of student programs by comparing their actual outputs with predefined expected outputs for selected test inputs. A common weakness of such systems is that student programs would be marked as incorrect as long as their outputs deviate from the predefined ones, even if the deviations are only minor, insignificant, and considered acceptable by a human assessor that the programs have satisfied the specifications. This critical weakness caused undue frustration to students and undesirable pedagogical consequences that undermine these systems' benefits. To address this issue, we developed an improved mechanism for program output comparison to serve as a versatile test oracle that brings the results of automated assessment much closer to those of human assessors. We evaluated the new mechanism in real programming classes using an existing automated program assessment system. We found that the new mechanism achieved zero false‐positive error (did not wrongly accept any incorrect output) and very low (0%–0.02%) false‐negative error (that wrongly rejected correct outputs), with very high accuracy (99.8%–100%) in correctly recognizing outputs deemed acceptable by instructors. This represents a major improvement over an existing assessment mechanism, which had 56.4%–64.1% false‐negative error with an accuracy of 25.4%–40.9%. Moreover, about 67%–96% of students achieved their best results in their first attempt, which could be encouraging to them and reduce their frustration. Furthermore, students generally welcomed the new assessment mechanism and agreed it was beneficial to their learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper presents an educational software tool to teach Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques, specifically Hyper-heuristics, to Engineering students. This tool is based on the 'Bubble Breaker' puzzle, an addictive game consisting in an M × M matrix of colored bubbles. These balls, when forming sets of two or more same colored balls, can be popped and cleared out. Thus, this puzzle can be solved by setting many different low-level heuristics and applying a global search procedure (i.e., evolutionary algorithm) that conforms a robust hyper-heuristic technique. The hyper-heuristic decides what low-level heuristics are the best, and the sequential way in which they have to be applied to gain the highest score. This approach has proven an interesting method to teach AI techniques, since simple heuristics, evolutionary algorithms, and its combination are studied in an increasing manner. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 23:277-285, 2015; View this article online at ; DOI [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we become ever more dependent on computer systems for much of what we do, we are losing the battle with cyber criminals and suffer from poor‐quality offerings. Mission‐critical, life‐critical, and infrastructure‐critical systems should be secure, reliable, and worthy of trust. Yet, that is not our experience. Many firms complain that entry‐level software workers do not have the skills and abilities to do what is required and yet we continue to teach computer science in ways very similar to what we did in the 1970s and '80s. As we spiral downward, it's hard to know precisely where the event horizon might be, so let us deal with it now. It's time for an educational and societal sea change when it comes to computing. Society has demonstrated the willingness to deal with such issues in medicine and other critical domains. Highly‐skilled clinical professors teach new physicians and specialists using the processes, methods, tools, and disciplines learners are expected to use as practicing professionals. It is time for the crucial software domains to leverage these proven methods and stop pushing off to employers these critical aspects of what it means to be a software professional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]