App Grader is an application designed to facilitate the grading of software applications, particularly for intro coding classes. 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.
More information on this application is available in the paper entitled "Developing Applications to Automatically Grade Introductory Visual Basic Courses" presented in the AMCIS 2017 conference in Boston.
This tool is designed to automate the static assessment of Visual Basic programs, analyzing the code for required programming elements, and provides a score based on the level of compliance with the assignment’s requirements. The coverage of Visual Basic source code is significant because there is little published work that focuses on this language. It also provides provides two different plagiarism checks not previously discussed in the literature. These two approaches are effective even when there is a high degree of similarity of submitted work as typically seen in introductory programming classes.