Empirical exploration in undergraduate operating systems

Abstract

The undergraduateo perating systemsc oursec an provide students with a valuable introduction to empirical testing and experimentation. We have implemented a process scheduling simulator designed to develop student empirical skills while they are learning part of the standard operating systems curriculum. The simulator is written in Java and available for direct experimentation via the World Wide Web. By accessing the remote URL through an appletviewer, students can permanently save input test data and simulator results generated in HTML format. In one type of assignment, students are given a hypothesis about process scheduling and are asked to develop experiments to support or disprove the hypothesis. In a second type of assignment students are asked to develop their own hypotheses. Not only did these assignments enhance student understanding of process scheduling, but the techniques exposed students to empirical approaches to validation and testing.