Alg_OS-A Web-Based Software Tool to Teach Page Replacement Algorithms of Operating Systems to Undergraduate Students
Operating systems (OS) is an important and mandatory discipline in many Computer Science, Information Systems, and Computer Engineering curricula. Some of its topics require a careful and detailed explanation from the instructor as they often involve theoretical concepts and somewhat complex mechanisms, demanding a certain degree of abstraction from the students if they are to gain a full understanding. The aim of this study was to design and evaluate the software tool Alg_OS. This software tool was designed to serve the learning purposes of the memory management and especially the page replacement algorithms operation to be used in the everyday OS classrooms. The undergraduate students can easily explore the operations of those algorithms through an interaction with Alg_OS user interface. More specifically, students can develop the operation way for each algorithm separately and learn from their mistakes that the software shows automatically in real time. All students performances stored in a database of Alg_OS. A total of 111 final-year undergraduate university students of the Department of Applied Informatics in Management and Economy, Technological Educational Institution of Messolonghi, Messolonghi, Greece were surveyed about their intention to use Alg_OS in their learning. The results showed that students had positive values indicating a tendency to be favorable towards using Alg_OS in their learning. (c) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 21: 581-585, 2013
alg_os page replacement algorithms operating systems instructional tool