Illinois Undergraduate Researchers Analyzing Code Hunt Data Set Released by Microsoft Research

Over the 2016 summer, a group of Illinois ASE undergraduate students, Pierre McCauley, Brandon Nsiah-Ababio, Joshua Reed, and Faramola Isiaka, advised by Professor Tao Xie, have been analyzing the Code Hunt data set (released by Microsoft Research) from a coding contest. Their undergraduate research has been supported by the National Science Foundations.

Code Hunt from Microsoft Research is a web-based serious gaming platform being popularly used for various programming contests. Over the summer, the Illinois ASE undergraduate students conducted preliminary analysis of the Code Hunt data set (players’ playing history) released by Microsoft Research. This data set contains the programs written by students (only) worldwide during a contest over 48 hours. There are approximately 250 users, 24 puzzles and about 13,000 programs.

The initial results of the data analysis will be presented in the 2016 International Code Hunt Workshop on Educational Software Engineering (CHESE 2016), co-located with FSE 2016 in Seattle, Washington in November 2016:

Pierre McCauley, Brandon Nsiah-Ababio, Joshua Reed, Faramola Isiaka, and Tao Xie. Preliminary Analysis of Code Hunt Data Set from a Contest. In Proceedings of the 2016 International Code Hunt Workshop on Educational Software Engineering (CHESE 2016), Seattle, WA, November 2016. [PDF]

Great job, Pierre, Brandon, Joshua, and Faramola!! Look forward your further comprehensive study of the Code Hunt data set (with additional efforts from Jeremy Green) in the upcoming 2016 Fall semester!

Thank Microsoft Research for releasing the Code Hunt data set to engage the academic community to study such valuable educational data!