Software standards in undergraduate computing courses

Abstract High‐quality software must be robust, reliable and maintainable. The design and coding of such software is no longer a craft; it is an engineering discipline, and the teaching of computer programming must reflect this. Consequently, students need to be aware of the importance of formulating accurate specifications for programming tasks, and of coding programs which correctly implement such specifications. However, the increase in student numbers experienced in recent years has caused manual methods of assessing students' programming assignments to become inefficient, and consistency more difficult to enforce. In order to support and motivate a rigorous approach in the context of these difficulties, an innovative on‐line assessment system for programming language modules has been developed which addresses both concerns. This paper describes the package and discusses its importance in the delivery and assessment of undergraduate programming modules.