Enki

Abstract

This paper presents Enki, a web-based IDE that integrates several pedagogical tools designed to engage students in learning programming languages. Enki achieves this goal (1) by sequencing educational resources, either expository or evaluative, (2) by using gamification services to entice students to solve activities, (3) by promoting social interaction and (4) by helping students with activities, providing feedback on submitted solutions. The paper describes Enki, its concept and architecture, details its design and implementation, and covers also its validation.

Fostering Programming Practice through Games

“…This is a huge concern among educators in this area and has led to a large body of research, not only to seek new forms of introducing students to programming, but also to boost the interest and motivation of people in coding. Among the most successful approaches are the use of competition and other game-like features in web learning environments to stimulate learners in solving more programming activities [22][23][24].…”

“…Asura uses game elements, particularly the assessment of programming exercises following competition formats and game-like graphical feedback of the behavior of the code, to create a more engaging programming-learning environment. Furthermore, it is embedded in Enki [22] through a special activity mechanism, which enables instructors to also deliver gamified educational contents along with Asura challenges. To the best of authors' knowledge, there are already learning environments that provide some of these features, but none of them includes automatic and competition-based assessment, game-like graphical feedback, and gamified educational content presentation, while supporting educators themselves to create their own courses with activities leveraging all these features.…”

“…From the research conducted, Enki [22] is the only tool that blends gamification, assessment and learning, presenting content in various forms as well as delivering programming assignments with automatic feedback, while allowing any stakeholder to create courses freely.…”

“…Although originally designed for managing programming contests, it eventually started being used in computer science classrooms to assist teachers in delivering timely and accurate feedback on programming assignments. As of version 2, Mooshak includes a pedagogical environment, named Enki [22]. Enki blends assessment (i.e., exercises) and learning (i.e., multimedia and textual resources) in a user interface designed to mimic the distinctive appearance of an IDE.…”