World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education  2003 UICEE

Vol.2, No.2, 2003

Computer-based software for testing students in digital logic theory and design
Charles Hacker
Griffith University
Gold Coast, Australia

ABSTRACT: Computer-based education is used extensively in the undergraduate digital electronic courses lectured by the author at
Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. In order to aid in the teaching of the required digital logic concepts, the author has
previously developed a suite of digital logic tutorial and simulation modules known as WinLogiLab. These modules provide tutorial
and simulation of the entire digital electronic curriculum of the author’s undergraduate course. The final requirement of the tutorial
suite was to provide for student testing. This article describes the development of a computer-based testing software module, called
LogicTester, that presents multiple-choice, short answer and, most importantly, digital logic circuit design questions for
unsupervised student testing. The testing software is fully interactive and requires students to input their own designed digital circuits
to solve given tasks, which the input circuit is then graded for accuracy. To allow for unsupervised student testing, extensive
encryption of the software data files and user results files were necessary in order to ensure no deception in the student submitted
results.

INTRODUCTION This article presents the development of the additional software

module, called LogicTester. The LogicTester module offers,
The curriculum of the introductory undergraduate digital firstly, standard multiple-choice and short answer type questions.
electronic courses lectured by the author at Griffith University, Yet the most important extra feature of this software is that it
Gold Coast, Australia, covers the varied topics of number presents digital logic circuit design questions. For this feature,
systems, Boolean algebra, discrete digital logic, minimisation the student is required to self-design and input a digital logic
techniques and sequential digital logic. circuit to perform the requested task. This circuit is then checked
against the computer-generated answer for a final grading.
The author desired to make use of computer-based education to
assist in the teaching of these digital electronic topics. EXISTING DIGITAL SIMULATION PACKAGES
However, it was initially discovered by the author that no
presently available user-friendly visual computer software was The designed computer-based testing software was required to
obtainable that would effectively achieve this teaching [1-4]. be compatible with the already successful WinLogiLab tutorial
This prompted the author to develop a suite of digital logic suite, and was required to be supplied free of charge to students
tutorial and simulation modules, collectively known as in the digital electronics course. These requirements made
WinLogiLab [1-4]. This provided easy-to-follow, visual, step- existing available teaching software packages unlikely to be
by-step tutorials that covered all topics in the undergraduate acceptable.
digital electronic curriculum.
However, before attempting the programming of the computer-
A demonstration version of the current stage of the complete based testing software, an extensive check was conducted on
WinLogiLab tutorial suite can be downloaded from the Griffith existing software. It was discovered that little commercial and
University Website at: freeware packages on digital electronic testing were available.
http://www.gu.edu.au/school/eng/mmt/ WinLLab.html. The search revealed the following three packages had
incorporated testing capabilities. These were: Computer Aided
The existing modules of the WinLogiLab tutorial suite have Tutorial Systems (CATS) [5], Digital Technology Learning
been successfully incorporated as part of the digital electronics Package [6], and Digital Logic Tutor [7]. Various useful
curriculum in a second year course. Student feedback indicated aspects of these software applications were incorporated into
the software as being educationally useful, beneficial to their this designed LogicTester, specifically the fully interactive, user
studies and that it conveyed the desired information. Student friendly and visual-based aspects.
feedback also provided valuable suggested improvements [1-4].
The designed LogicTester actually provides more than what is
Currently, the full digital electronic course curriculum is offered by the existing applications, which only provide
covered by the existing WinLogiLab tutorial modules. Thus, to multiple-choice and short answer type questions. The designed
finish off the tutorial suite capabilities, it was deemed LogicTester presents these capabilities, but also extends this to
beneficial to add the capability of providing for testing of the actually request students to design and input their own digital
introduced theory for the design of digital circuits. electronic circuits on screen.

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THE BENEFITS OF COMPUTER-BASED TESTING software. This makes it impractical for any attempt at user
modification of the file in any intelligible way.
Computer-based testing provides a valuable learning exercise
for students. A successful test will verify to students that they MAIN SCREEN
have obtained the required knowledge in digital electronic
theory and circuit design. With the ability for students to install
the software on their own computer, or via university 24-hour START A LOAD A
access computing laboratories, students are able to undertake a NEW USER SAVED USER
self-test at their own convenience and at their own pace. TEST TEST

A further beneficial aspect, for the author’s concern, is that the

software can provide for unsupervised examinable competency- SELECT A TEST TOPIC
based mastery tests. This refers to students being able to re-take
the mastery tests until a suitable grade had been obtained. The PERFORM SELECTED
author has previously introduced paper-based mastery tests for
each topic within the digital electronic course. This had been
shown to result in better student course completion rates and DISPLAY FINAL RESULTS
has been stated in student evaluations as being beneficial to
students. Yet despite its student benefits, it also imposed a SUBMIT RESULTS FILE
greater teaching workload for the author. The workload
increased due to the amount of marking and the time and effort Figure 1: Flow diagram of the LogicTester software.
required for setting and supervising tests. The unsupervised
computer-based testing will thus reduce this teaching load.

The provision of competency-based testing, where students can

continuously retake tests, necessitated that a different selection
of questions be presented with each test. This was achieved by
firstly providing a large database of questions. Thus, different
questions are drawn from the database with each subsequent
test. Also, many questions have sections randomly generated
during the test, which ensures the uniqueness of these particular
questions.

For the software to provide unsupervised examinable testing,

insurances are required that no student deception has occurred.
One such insurance is to ensure a student’s identity by requiring
a password log in to the software. Another is to encrypt the Figure 2: Input for a new user screen.
questions, images and answers stored in the test database. This
makes it unfeasible for students to reveal or extract the Once a new User Test file has been established, or a saved User
questions, images or answers by simply viewing the encrypted Test file is loaded, a Select Test Topic screen is displayed, as
database. There is also a possibility for deception when demonstrated in Figure 3.
submitting the final results. In order to overcome this, the saved
results are encrypted and the hardcopy printed results contain
encrypted validation security keys.

DESIGNED SOFTWARE

The flow diagram of the LogicTester software structure is

shown in Figure 1. The LogicTester software starts by
requesting to either start a new User Test file, or to load an
existing saved User Test file.

When selecting to start a new User Test file, a screen opens to

request the student’s information. An example of the new user
input screen is given in Figure 2. The requested information
desired from a new user is the student name, student number
and a user password. The password is stored in the encrypted
Test file and is required to be entered when re-accessing the
Test file. That is, upon loading a saved User Test file, the
software requests the entering of a password and will allow Figure 3: Test topic selection screen.
access only if the entered password matches the stored
password. The screen in Figure 3 illustrates how the user is allowed to
select various topics in digital electronics. These topics
Encrypting the User Test file ensures that the file will have no approximately follow the weekly lecture topics presented in the
meaning when an attempt is made to view by auxiliary author’s undergraduate digital electronics course.

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The select test topic screen also displays the results of
previously attempted test topics. This enables students to
monitor their progress and offers them the opportunity to retake
topic tests that have not met the required percentage score.

As previously stated, each test topic has a significant number of

set and random generated questions stored in the test database.
This allows for completely different sets of questions to be
presented to the student with each subsequent retake of the
topic test. Once a test topic has been selected, the program will
randomly select a set of questions from the database and
present each question to the student in turn.

The presented questions have a number of different formats.

One of the formats is of the standard multiple-choice
questionnaire. In this format, a stored question is displayed to
the student and a selection of possible answers is displayed. Figure 5: Example of a short answer question.
The student is thus requested to select the most appropriate
answer from the list. This is demonstrated in Figure 4.

Figure 6: Example test to input a Boolean equation.

Figure 4: Example of a multiple-choice question.
Another enhanced question format requires the student to enter
As shown in Figure 5, the presented questions are usually based a digital circuit. With this question format, either a Boolean
on a digital circuit or diagrams based on digital electronics. equation, or design problem is presented to the student. A
This circuit or diagram is also included in the test database as a student is required to design a digital circuit in order to solve
stored encrypted digital image. the given problem and input this designed circuit. The entered
circuit is then examined against the internal computer generated
Another designed question format is that of the short answer solution. An example of this is given in Figure 7.
type. In this case, the displayed question requests some form of
typed input to answer the question, such as a short word, phrase
or numerical input. An example of the short answer type of
question is provided in Figure 5.

The above multiple-choice and short answer type questions are

actually similar to all other available computer-based testing
software. This software was designed to be much more, so the
significant improvement in this designed LogicTester software
actually tests the student’s ability to design and analyse digital
circuits. This was made possible by utilising the code
developed for the design of digital circuits incorporated in
other WinLogiLab software modules.

One of the enhanced question formats allows the input of a

Boolean equation. In this case, the student is required to
analyse a given circuit image or other digital electronic images,
and input the Boolean equation that describes the given image.
An example of this question format is given in Figure 6. Figure 7: Example test to design a digital circuit.

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The final enhanced question format allows for the entering of a For further examination purposes, the student is required to
digital counter circuit. Similarly, in this case, a problem is periodically submit their entire encrypted saved Test file. This
presented to the student in which a digital counter is required to Test file can then be decrypted by the lecturer’s decryption
be designed to perform the task. The digital counter circuit is program and used to verify a student’s results. The submission
then entered on screen and subsequently compared to the is performed electronically, via e-mail or can be copied and
internal computer generated solution. An example of this is submitted on disk. An example of the e-mail submission of a
given in Figure 8. Test file is given in Figure 10.

Figure 10: E-mail submission of test results.

Figure 8: Example test to design a digital counter. CONCLUSION

Once the user ends the selected question topic, or the user This paper presents the development of the software module
depletes the particular topic questions in the database, then a LogicTester, which forms the final phase of the existing
final result screen is displayed. An example of this is provided WinLogiLab computer-based educational software suite. The
in Figure 9. LogicTester module completes the software suite by providing
student testing on the required digital electronic theory and
circuit design concepts. With the inclusion of encryption and
security checks, the software will be utilised for unsupervised
computer-based competency testing. This will result in a
reduced teaching workload in the author’s digital electronics
course.

REFERENCES

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Proc. 10th Annual Australasian Assoc. for Engng. Educ.
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