Witness Feedback for Introductory CS Theory Assignments
Ivona Bezáková, Kimberly Fluet, Edith Hemaspaandra, Hannah Miller, David E. Narváez · 2021
Computing theory analyzes abstract computational models to rigorously study the computational difficulty of various problems. Introductory computing theory can be challenging for undergraduate students, and the overarching goal of our research is to help students learn these computational models. The most common pedagogical tool for interacting with these models is the Java Formal Languages and Automata Package (JFLAP). We developed a JFLAP server extension, which accepts homework submissions from students, evaluates the submission as correct or incorrect, and provides a witness string when the submission is incorrect. Our extension currently provides witness feedback for deterministic finite automata, nondeterministic finite automata, regular expressions, context-free grammars, and pushdown automata.