CAFÉ stands for Correction Automatique & Feedback des Étudiants (Automated Assessment and Feedback for Students).
This project has been led for over ten years by Prof. Benoit Donnet. Initially developed during the PhD research of Simon Liénardy, a former PhD student at ULiège, it started as a set of Python scripts designed to provide automated feedback on first-year computer science students’ homework. This system has since allowed students to submit their work multiple times, enabling iterative improvement.
Over the years, it has evolved into a web platform (known as CAFÉ 2.0), currently developed by Géraldine Brieven and Lev Malcev, PhD students at ULiège. Since 2021, this platform has been used by all first-year students and now serves as a central hub for all our educational activities.
As illustrated above, CAFÉ 2.0 is now supporting a variety of activities:
- Graphical Loop Invariant Drawing Editor (GLIDE), labeled as “Loop Drawing Editor”, allows students to draw and, somewhat, validate their Graphical Loop Invariant.
- Programming Challenges (PCA), labeled as “Challenges”, allowing students to practice on various and cumulative programming challenges spread over the whole semester.
- GameCodes, gamified homework exercises provided to students instead of in-class exercise sessions.
- Progress Tracker allows students to practice on theoretical aspects of the course through gamified MCQs.
Whatever the activity running on top of CAFÉ 2.0, it collects learning analytics useful for research purposes and class management.
CAFÉ 2.0 is thus a kind of generic platform, allowing various kinds of activities. CAFÉ 2.0 is currently extended to support additional courses, e.g., Physics and Chemistry.