Aristotle: A flexible open-source software toolkit for semi-automated marking of programming assignments

Abstract

A new flexible open-source software toolkit to assist in the marking of programming assignments is presented. This toolkit automates the process of validating, building, and testing assignment submissions in addition to generating reports summarizing the results of building and testing student code. By using this toolkit (especially in conjunction with a tool like GitHub Classroom), the amount of effort required for assignment marking can be greatly reduced. The toolkit is programming-language neutral (i.e., does not mandate the use of a particular language) and provides a high degree of flexibility by allowing various operations to be customized via user-provided programs, which may be written in a scripting language of the user's choice.