UML-Test Application for Automated Validation of Students' UML Class Diagram

This article deals with the issue of how to semi-automatically validate novice programmers' UML class diagrams which document their software assignments. This problem is rather serious given the large numbers of students in the introductory programming courses. The article discusses a self-contained tool which makes it easy to prepare very detailed automated tests (hundreds of them) of UML class diagrams. The tool allows to run these tests and evaluate them both individually and statistically. The described tool, which is freely available, has been used for one year in an elementary course of object oriented programming based on the Java programming language, alongside with three other tools used for automatic validation of students' projects. The article discusses both the tool's principles including a technical solution and the experience gained from its use.