CodeHelper: A Web-Based Lightweight IDE for E-Mentoring in Online Programming Courses

Abstract

Many universities choose online courses instead of in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the limitations of online courses is that it is difficult to perform teacher-student interactions in online teaching environments. Especially in online programming courses, it is hard to find an appropriate approach to remotely guide students when they have trouble conducting program code. This paper presents a lightweight IDE named CodeHelper integrated with an online judge that allows the instructor or the teaching assistant (TA) to help students in a form of online pair programming. Students can share their code with the instructor or the TA in a sandbox programming environment generated by CodeHelper, and the instructor or the TA can guide students by marking the mistakes in the sandbox. CodeHelper allows real-time pair programming for both sides, which can reduce the time and the cost of distance learning. Besides, the source code shared in the sandbox can also be compiled for syntax check, executed with a user-defined input, and submitted to the online judge for automated assessment, which can let students check the correctness of their programs once their troubles have been solved. It is efficient to use CodeHelper for mentoring students in online programming courses.