Visualizing Programming Session Timelines

Learning programming with tutor tools has grown in popularity. These tools present programming assignments and provide feedback in the form of test-cases and compilation errors. Our timeline visualization of data from one such tool allows us to tell a story about what files were accessed and for how long, in what order files were edited, grown or shrunk, what errors the student ran into, and how those errors were addressed. This can be done without a need to read and replay the entire programming session. In sum, the tool has been used to visualize logs from students that tried to solve programming assignments and we find interesting stories that can help us improve how we address new assignments.