The A+ starter workshop

Why?

Teacher of computer science, would you like to have custom, automatically assessed exercises on your course? Besides MyCourses, the Aalto Department of Computer Science has its own A+ Learning Management System .

The essential features of A+ and related software are:

automatic grading of programming exercises in, for example, Python, Scala, and Clingo. It is possible to support practically any programming language.
visual point-and-click exercises
multilingual exercises
plagiarism detection with code similarity analysis
grading essays efficiently and consistently with rubrics
group submissions
monitoring students’ progress and learning analytics visualisations
feedback queries for exercise rounds
lab queue for programming exercise sessions in computer classrooms
discussion forums (e.g., Piazza)
interactive code animations and annotation tool (JSVEE & Kelmu)

The CS department wiki also has a page about A+.

Audience

The workshop is aimed at university lecturers, professors, and course assistants developing exercises. If consider having custom, automatic exercise graders on your course, we encourage you to participate. If unsure, you can still participate in the beginning of the workshop and see if A+ is for you.

Language

The workshop is held in Finnish or English, depending on the participants.

Requirements

See the A+ quick start guide. Shortly:

A laptop with Linux or macOS
git
docker-ce (Docker Community Edition, Docker for Mac)
docker-compose

Time and location

Time: Friday 14 June, 12:15-14:00
Location: room T6, Konemiehentie 2, Espoo

Schedule

12:15-13:00	Short introductions Demo on different types of exercises Installing A+, an example course, and related software Simple course editing
13:00-13:15	Break
13:15-14:00	Setting Aalto GitLab for your course Getting help from Slack Discussing your course needs Deciding the next workshop

Hosts

Artturi Tilanterä is a course assistant for CS-A1141 Data Structures and Algorithms Y, and CS-A1130 Computing Applications. He has worked with Python, HTML, MATLAB, and Simulink exercise graders.

Jaakko Kantojärvi is the A+ lead developer.

Markku Riekkinen is the A+ co-lead developer.

Registration

Please register to the workshop here.

Contact and further information

If you have more questions about the workshop, or are interested but not able to attend, please contact: name @aalto.fi.

You are also welcome to join to the channel #a-plus-help at the Slack workspace of LeTech group. More information about A+ can be found at the Aalto CS department wiki. The software related to A+ has been initiated in the Learning + Technology group (LeTech).