Developing Applications to Automatically Grade Introductory Visual Basic Courses

There are many unique challenges associated with introductory programming courses. For novice programmers, the challenges of their first programming class can lead to a great deal of stress and frustration. Regular programming assignments is often key to developing an understanding of best practices and the coding process. Students need practice with these new concepts to reinforce the underlying principles. Providing timely and consistent feedback on these assignments can be a challenge for instructors, particularly in large classes. Plagiarism is also a concern. Unfortunately traditional tools are not well suited to introductory courses.This paper describes how AppGrader, a static code assessment tool can be used to address the challenges of an introductory programming class. The tool assesses student's understanding and application of programming fundaments as defined in the current ACM/IEEE Information Technology Curriculum Guidelines. Results from a bench test and directions for future research are provided.