Analysis of performing code review in the classroom

Abstract

In real-world software development, engineering teams generally engage in code review to ensure the authorship of high-quality code. However, in undergraduate university settings, where many students are preparing for a career in software development, code that is written for classes generally does not go through similar code review processes. There are many aspects of the academic setting which does not allow existing commercial code review processes to be used. This work presents a software solution to code reviewing in academic settings, so that students can get constructive comments about the code they turn in for assignments. The software was used in two semesters of the Software Engineering course at MIT, and experimental results show that students can generate high-quality feedback for code written by their classmates.