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Autolab is a course management service developed at CMU that enables instructors to offer programming labs to their students over the Internet. The two key ideas in Autolab are autograding, that is, programs evaluating other programs, and scoreboards.
Autolab also provides other services that instructors expect in a course management system, including gradebooks, rosters, handins/handouts, lab writeups, code annotation, manual grading, late penalties, grace days, cheat checking, partners, and bulk emails.
Each time a student submits their work, the system autogrades it on a secure Linux instance, and stores the results in a gradebook. Autograders and the programs they evaluate can be written in any language and use any software packages. The model for a traditional programming class is that students work on their code, hand it in once, and then get feedback a week or two later, at which point they've already moved on to the next assignment. Autograding, on the other hand, allows students to get immediate feedback on their performance.
The latest autograded scores for each student are displayed, rank ordered, on a real-time scoreboard. The scoreboard is a fun and powerful motivation for students. When coupled with autograding, it creates a sense of community and a healthy competition that seems to benefit everyone. Students anonymize themselves on the scoreboard by giving themselves nicknames. A mix of curiosity and competitiveness drives the stronger students to be at the top of the scoreboard, and all students have a clear idea of what they need for full credit. In our experience, everyone wins.
- Soma Narita
- Joy Song
- David Wang
- Michelle Liu
- Joey Wildman
- Nick Clark
- Damian Ho
- Evan Shi
- Joanna Ge
- Kester Tan
- Lynn Kim
- Dave O'Hallaron
- Gregory Kesden
We released new documentation! Check it out here