Aalborg University (AAU) is a renowned university in Denmark, founded in 1974. Education and research within the fields of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and technical and health sciences are offered at AAU. The university awards Bachelors, Master’s, Ph.D. and Doctoral degrees in various fields within the different programmes, institutes, and centres. Approximately 20,729 students are enrolled at AAU, 13% of whom are international students from European countries, the Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Africa.
Department of Electronic Systems is the biggest department at the university and internationally highly ranked on its area (no 36 on the 2017 QS ranking up from 37 and 41 in 2016 and 2015, respectively). Center for Communication, Media and Information Technologies (CMI, www.cmi.aau.dk) is a center under the Department of Electronic Systems and is based in Copenhagen. CMI engages in research and teaching in the area of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), including information technology (IT), telecommunications and media/broadcast. One important focus of CMI is the convergence of technologies and industries, with special attention to the novel Internet technologies, which increasingly are becoming the common platforms for ICT-based industries. With a scientific staff of 13 persons and 17 Ph.Ds, CMI offers BSc. and MSc programs in computer engineering with a focus in IT services, market, and innovation. As of today, 175 students are enrolled in programmes offered by CMI, 50% of whom are foreign students from Europe, Asia and Africa.
AAU is characterized by the Problem Based Learning (PBL) teaching model. AAU’s approach on the PBL programme is highly recognized internationally, and UNESCO has placed its only Danish chair in PBL at Aalborg University. At CMI, PBL is the foundation for BSc and MSc students’ study activities in terms of 15 ECTS group projects each semester, and it also shapes the approach to how Ph.D. students develop their projects. PBL is a powerful learning method when it comes to teaching programing languages and software engineering. Both courses are indeed important parts of CMI’s bachelor education (ITCOM) and master education (ICTE).
In this project, CMI will use the PBL and the competencies in teaching programming to contribute in the development of the automatic platform for online programming judging. The aim is to make learning programming languages fun and efficient by developing open source tools that can be freely accessible by the involved universities. Currently, CMI is already using existing similar platforms, such as domjudge and dmoj, to enhance the programming learning experience of the students, who find such tools to be crucial components of the education. CMI will use the experience with the issues faced during the deployment and maintenance of such platforms to prepare a versatile, intuitive, and simple tool, in order to facilitate its installation and utilization even by not very technically skilled teachers. Moreover, CMI will contribute with the development of new standardized assignments that can be used by all programming teachers to improve and enhance the learning experience of the students. CMI will further use the possibility to develop tools and methods that makes learning programming more interesting for female students.
Gallery – Aalborg Universitet
