Most of the material for the courses I am involved with in 2008
will (eventually) be available on-line. If you are a student in one
of these papers, please follow the appropriate link below, and
familiarise yourself with the resources available.
Contributing-student pedagogies involves students authoring and
sharing learning resources within and between courses. The learning
environment is collaborative and cooperative, rather than competitive
and individual.
A long time ago, a solid grasp of the discipline's core knowledge was
both necessary and sufficient for a graduate's career. Today, such core
knowledge has become relatively less valuable: we typically measure the
half-live
of knowledge in small numbers of years or even months.
Society is now demanding graduates who are adaptable, reflective
thinkers capable of communicating and co-operating effectively.
Specific domain knowledge routinely comes well behind such
transferable skills in employer surveys.
The assignments and forms of assessment in common use today are
largely a legacy from this bygone era. We persist in setting individual
assignments that are (belatedly) marked by tutors (or, more often,
senior students), providing little by way of useful, timely feedback.
There is a clear need for novel forms of assessment better suited to the
modern world
My contribution to this area is a web-based system, Aropä, for
administering peer-assessed assignments. Aropä provides several
complementary mechanisms for evaluating the quality of the reviewing,
and can be adapted to a wide variety of assessment contexts.
I was a member of the BRACE study, a group of fifteen researchers
from eleven institutions (in New Zealand, Australia, England and
Scotland) investigating predictors to success in introductory
programming.
The ITiCSE 2004 working group investigated the ability of
introductory programming students to read (trace) and understand short
programs involving generic, iterative processes on arrays. Twelve
researchers from Australia, USA, Wales, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden,
and Finland collected performance data, interview transcripts and
scratch paper doodles
from a 12 question multi-choice test.
We concluded that many students exhibit fragile knowledge in these
core skills, a result that goes some way to explaining the poor problem
solving ability studied by the 2001 ITiCSE working group and observed by
lecturers worldwide.
Our report appeared in the December issue of the ACM SIGCSE Bulletin
A follow-up study, using a broader set of MCQs, is currently being
conducted by a group of New Zealand researchers (the "BRACE-let study").
.
The Lightweight Java Visualizer (LJV)
LJV.java is tool for visualizing Java data
structures, using Graphviz.
It has been used to good effect in a CS1 and CS2-level data structures
course. The software is available under the GNU
General Public License. Documentation for the system is in
preparation. Meanwhile, there are some examples, and a
paper I wrote on the system for the ACE 2004 conference (slides), and another
paper that appeared in the 3rd Program Visualization Workshop
(Research Report 407, Department of Computer Science, University of
Warwick, 2004).
If you find this tool helpful, please send me an email.
Kyle Gillette has put together some material for AP Computer Science teachers
that should be useful to anyone wanting a gentle introduction to the
tool.
SE project students
- Andrew Olsen and Craig De Stigter,
A web-based panorama and virtual tour authoring system
(2007)
- Danushka Abeysuriya and Guy Sherman,
Enhanced Source Control
(2007)
- Randeep Kakar and Ravneet Madan,
Risk Alert Management System
(2007)
- Anita Sridhar and Nehrin Hossain,
Lecture clickers
(2006)
- Chien Chao and Kamran Rafei,
An on-line dress sense feedback system
(2006)
- Ninos Yacoub and Aiman Alsari,
Pocket PC Football Referee Assistant
(2006)
- Elias Billeh and Nasser Giacaman,
Massive multiple sequence alignment via grid computing and genetic algorithms
(2005)
- Suk Yee Leung and Alice Hung,
Architectures for building Smart Client software
(2005)
- Tahseen Khan and Lakshan Warusevitane,
A Java data structure visualiser for Eclipse
(2005)
- Warren Wei and Justin Yong,
A study into the effects of Peer Assessment
(2005)
- Oshan Kottege and Sarala Dissanayake
Global Golf
(2004)
- Hugh Kwong and Kenneth Ma
A Peer Marking system
(2004)
- Chun-Jen Tseng and Cheng Tseng
Soccer strategy planner
(2004)
- Charles Jiang and Kevin Chien-Yu Chen
Reverse engineering and re-design of a report writer language
(2003)
- Hayden Melton and Robert Hughes
An evaluation of Object Prevaylance
(2003)
MSc thesis students
- Colin Coghill (current)
- Tinghua Xu
Bridging the Gap between Design and Implementation
(MSc, 2002)
- Andre Cesta
From Dynamic Languages to Dynamic Architectures
(MSc, 2000)
- Goran Ristic
Performance Issues in Large Databases
(MSc, 1999)
- Andrew MacGibbon
Debugging for Lazy Functional Languages
(MSc, 1997)
- Keith Wansbrough
A Modular Monadic Action Semantics
(MSc, 1997)
Students thinking about taking a project or thesis are welcome to browse
my list of research topics. to get an idea
of the kinds of topics I am interested in supervising.
You might also like to read about the kind of grading criteria that may be used when
marking theses and projects.
Fun stuff
Personal background
I have been associated with the Computer Science department since way
back in 1983. The department had been in existence all of two years
back then, so I can fairly claim to be one of its longest serving
associates. I came to Auckland after studying for two years at Victoria
University of Wellington, and completed my Victoria BSc during my first
year at Auckland. I went on to enrol in a MSc, and then converted to a
PhD in 1986. My PhD involved developing a declarative object-oriented
language intended for applications in the building industry. The work
was funded by the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ),
and this enabled me to work as a Research Officer during 1988 and 1989.
I completed my PhD in 1990 and became a lecturer in the department in
December that year.
I have taught classes in Artificial Intelligence (07.363), Language
Design and Implementation (07.431, SOFTENG 701), Software Engineering
(07.230, SOFTENG 206), Logic and Functional Programming (415.360,
SOFTENG 325), Introductory Computing (07.111), Computer Systems
(415.210), Algorithms and Data Structures (415.105, 415.220, SOFTENG
250), Introductory Programming (COMPSCI 101), Formal Methods (SOFTENG
461/462), and Common Lisp (SOFTENG 701). I received a University of
Auckland Distinguished Teaching Award in 1997, and was voted Best
Lecturer in Software Engineering
in 2003 and again in 2004 by the
graduating year Software Engineering students. In 2007 I received
AaeE's
Programme that Enhances Excellence in Learning
award for my work
on Aropä.
I referee football (soccer), earning my NZ badge (#2139) in May
2008, and keep fit by running and cycling. I ran
the Auckland marathon
in 2006, completed all six long races in the Leppin (now
Xterra) off-road run series
in 2007. In 2008 I swam, clambered and ran the "Full
Monty" North
Shore Coastal Challenge and ran the
magnificent Cape Brett
Challenge. Also that year, in Scotland I completed four races in
the Scottish Long Classics series:
Ben Rinnes
(profile),
Ochil 2000s,
Two Breweries, and
Pentland Skyline
(profile),
as well as the
Three Shires Hill Race
(profile)
in the Lake District.
Slow
I go out to find whatever comes
But the first fifteen minutes
are for trying to breathe, the next
fifteen are for using both legs
without almost having to count
cadence, and the second half hour
for water, two cheeps of a bird,
and the reassurance that
important chemicals
are now in the bloodstream ...
the first hour
is the hardest hour, but in the
second hour
something goes right without
your knowing:
a mixture of good motions, oxygen
and a certain giving-up
that permits you not to hurry
and gives you back for every
slow minute
two that are behind you ...
— Marvin Bell (1937–)
