Emphasizing software quality in undergraduate programming laboratories

Summary form only given. We have received funding from NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education under the Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement Program to develop an approach to improving the software development skill of undergraduate computer science students, integrate that approach into our curriculum, and evaluate its benefits. Part of our work involves the development of an interactive web-site that governs the interaction of instructors and students in defining, completing and evaluating course assignments. We have implemented an initial version of this web-site and plan on demonstrating its capabilities. Our curriculum is designed to provide a solid foundation in the concepts and techniques needed by practicing computer scientists. The core courses in our curriculum involve a significant number of programming laboratory exercises. In these laboratories students are given a well defined problem which they are to solve by designing and writing a computer program. These exercises serve to develop problem-solving and design skills, provide a deep familiarity with the notations of the profession, and give concrete feedback to the student regarding their progress.