A proposal for automatic evaluation in a compiler construction course.

ABSTRACTExperience in teaching the subject of Language Processors within the degree for Technical Engineering Computer Science, highlights the difficulties developing a compiler, for both students and instructors. The former because they are often disoriented when they are unable to get some feedback on their work and the latter because of the amount of effort and time involved to perform the evaluation. This paper presents a system for assisting evaluation using test cases, aligned with the trends of European Higher Education Area ongoing evaluation methodology. This approach is implemented in four phases where different problems are faced. The first phase consists of designing a test case set, accurate enough to discern whether the student successfully absorbed the different concepts and contents of the subject. The second phase involves the implementation of a runtime environment for the designed tests, so that many of the tasks required by the teaching staff can be automated. In the third phase, automatic assessment, according to different criteria is implemented. The fourth phase is the report of the results of the previous execution like straightforward feedback for both students and teachers