Over on CSZero: Irish Computer Science Leaving Certificate Curriculum Consultation Update
Introducing computer science to Irish schools
On monday the Irish government anounced more strategy for their plan to introduce programming to the primary and secondary curricula. As currently set out, this will take place through the mathematics curriculum (at least at the primary level). As part of the wider plan, Computer Science will be introduced as a secondary level (high school) subject, a development I have also been following recently.
The Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020 plan for 2017, which was launched by Minister for Education Richard Bruton yesterday, seeks to increase the use of ICT (information and communications technology) in Irish schools and includes the introduction of a benchmarking system from this September to allow teachers to track their progress in using digital technologies when teaching. Read more over at CSzero.
The NY Times on plagiarising code and how much do CS grads make in China, Ireland, and the US?
Last week on CSzero: The New York Times on plagiarising code and salaries of CS grads in China, Ireland and the US
Intern Required for Summer 2017
Update May 15, 2017. This position has been filled. Please keep your eye on this webpage for future opportunities.
Paid summer internship on a funded ACM research project. Location: UCD School of Computer Science, Dublin Ireland.
I am looking for a summer intern to work on a research project funded by a grant from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). This work will begin in the late Spring or early Summer of 2017 and be complete by September 2017.
This research will collect, categorize and analyze the learning outcome statements of CS1 courses across a large, diverse set of institutions. This will provide an answer to the question: What exactly are we expecting our novice programming students to achieve? This will allow the CS education community to decide if, as recent evidence has suggested, we have unrealistic expectations of our CS1 students. If this is indeed the case, the outputs of this research will also provide a starting point for the community to adjust its expectations of novice programmers. This could result in improvements in failure rates, retention, diversity and equity in CS education.
The project will require 8-12 weeks of full-time paid work (depending on hourly commitment). The outputs of this research will aim to be published in a leading ACM journal or conference. The student intern will directly contribute to this effort and will be a co-author on the publication.
The successful student will be well versed in structured web searches and related technologies and be able to develop a website and database to store project outputs. A good work ethic, attention to detail, and written communication skills are required. References from module lecturers or similar will form part of your application.
This is an excellent opportunity for any goal-oriented undergraduate student looking to gain real-world experience on a funded research project and who would like to start or enhance their publication history.
Please contact Dr. Brett Becker for further information including application procedure.
Effective compiler error message enhancement for novice programming students
My colleagues and I have just published a paper in Computer Science Education (Taylor & Francis). The abstract, citation, and link are below:
Effective compiler error message enhancement for novice programming students
Abstract:
Programming is an essential skill that many computing students are expected to master. However, programming can be difficult to learn. Successfully interpreting compiler error messages (CEMs) is crucial for correcting errors and progressing toward success in programming. Yet these messages are often difficult to understand and pose a barrier to progress for many novices, with struggling students often exhibiting high frequencies of errors, particularly repeated errors. This paper presents a control/intervention study on the effectiveness of enhancing Java CEMs. Results show that the intervention group experienced reductions in the number of overall errors, errors per student, and several repeated error metrics. These results are important as the effectiveness of CEM enhancement has been recently debated. Further, generalizing these results should be possible at least in part, as the control group is shown to be comparable to those in several studies using Java and other languages.
Citation:
Please see Google Scholar or my publications page.
Or, see the paper on the Taylor & Francis site.
ITiCSE 2016 paper: A New Metric to Quantify Repeated Compiler Errors for Novice Programmers
Becker, B.A., 2016, July. A New Metric to Quantify Repeated Compiler Errors for Novice Programmers. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (pp. 296-301). ACM.
Abstract:
Encountering the same compiler error repeatedly, particularly several times consecutively, has been cited as a strong indicator that a student is struggling with important programming concepts. Despite this, there are relatively few studies which investigate repeated errors in isolation or in much depth. There are also few data-driven metrics for measuring programming performance, and fewer for measuring repeated errors. This paper makes two contributions. First we introduce a new metric to quantify repeated errors, the repeated error density (RED). We compare this to Jadud’s Error Quotient (EQ), the most studied metric, and show that RED has advantages over EQ including being less context dependent, and being useful for short sessions. This allows us to answer two questions posited by Jadud in 2006 that have until now been unanswered. Second, we compare the EQ and RED scores using data from an empirical control/intervention group study involving an editor which enhances compiler error messages. This intervention group has been previously shown to have a reduced overall number of student errors, number of errors per student, and number of repeated student errors per compiler error message. In this research we find a reduction in EQ, providing further evidence that error message enhancement has positive eff ects. In addition we fi nd a signifi cant reduction in RED providing evidence that this metric is valid.
6th Irish Supercomputer List: Irish HPC capacity doubles, new #1, three new Top500-class machines!
In a dramatic shake-up of the Irish High Performance Computing landscape, the 6th Irish Supercomputer List was announced today. The new list features six new machines at positions 1, 2, 3, 8, 20 and 27. The top three machines are Top500-class, currently featuring at positions 357, 453, and 454 on the 47th Top500 list. These three machines combined have a performance of 981 Teraflop/s, nearly 1.5 times the combined power of all 28 machines on the December 2015 list.
The result is a more than doubling of Ireland’s total HPC output. Combined, all machines on the Irish Supercomputer List now have a total processing power of 1.42Petaflop/s (Petaflops).
Additionally, this new power results in Ireland ranking at #2 in the world in terms of number of Top500 systems per capita, and #11 in the world in terms of computing capacity (Rmax) per capita.
With 6 new machines, 7 decommissionings, and 2 upgrades, the June 2016 list experienced a turnover of over half of the December 2015 list.
This list features a number of firsts:
- First time Irish aggregate HPC power exceeds 1 Petaflop
- First time in two years that Ireland has featured on the Top500 list
- First time Ireland has had three machines on the Top500 list since June 2012
- First time with a turnover of over half of the previous list
- First time that aggregate list power has increased by a multiple of the previous power
List highlights:
- Total number of systems: 27
- 6 new installations
- 2 upgraded installations
- 7 decommissionings
- Aggregate performance: 1.42 Petaflops (PFlop/s)
- > 86,000 processor cores
View the full list at www.IrishSupercomputerList.org
New version of EpimiRbase relesed
The latest version of EpimiRBase is available for searching and for download in .csv, .xml and .json formats. The latest version includes data from 7 new publications. EpimiRBase now contains 2,068 microRNA-epilepsy associations from 41 publications including 1207 unique microRNA (1,198 up and 870 down regulated)
from three species: human (161), mouse (854) and rat (1,053).
EpimiRBase was established in 2015 in order to provide complete and up-to-date information on all publications relating to microRNA and epilepsy. The fully-searchable database includes information on up- and down-regulated microRNAs in the brain and blood, as well as functional studies, and covers both experimental models and human epilepsy.
Current Challenges and Future Research Areas for Digital Forensic Investigation
Given the ever-increasing prevalence of technology in modern life, there is a corresponding increase in the likelihood of digital devices being pertinent to a criminal investigation or civil litigation. As a direct consequence, the number of investigations requiring digital forensic expertise is resulting in huge digital evidence backlogs being encountered by law enforcement agencies throughout the world. It can be anticipated that the number of cases requiring digital forensic analysis will greatly increase in the future. It is also likely that each case will require the analysis of an increasing number of devices including computers, smartphones, tablets, cloud-based services, Internet of Things devices, wearables, etc. The variety of new digital evidence sources poses new and challenging problems for the digital investigator from an identification, acquisition, storage and analysis perspective. This paper explores the current challenges contributing to the backlog in digital forensics from a technical standpoint and outlines a number of future research topics that could greatly contribute to a more efficient digital forensic process. Keywords: Digital Evidence Backlog, Digital Forensic Challenges, Future Research Topics
Lillis, D., Becker, B., O’Sullivan, T., Scanlon, M. “Current Challenges and Future Research Areas for Digital Forensic Investigation” The 11th ADSFL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law (CDFSL 2016), Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, May 2016.
CS0: A New Computer Science Education Blog
I have just launched a project I have been meaning to for some time – a blog on Computer Science Education. There are a few other excellent CSED blogs out there which have inspired me to start my own.
I called it CS0 because CS1 refers to the introductory programming course in university computer science education, and I think that computing education needs the rethink that is already underway. Besides the fact that a significant focus of modern computing education is at pre-university, or “pre-CS1” levels, the Computing Education community needs to continue to come up with ways to engage and encourage not just traditional students, but anyone and everyone who wants to learn more about the age we live in.