Teaching Process Management with an Operating Systems Simulator: The UR-OS Experience

Every computer science student must learn about operating systems fundamentals, including topics related to process planning, memory management, etc. Some basic concepts are mostly theoretical and have to be tested by hand because they are not implemented in modern OSs; however, understanding them is critical because they set the basis for all the existing techniques. This paper presents the first version of UR_OS. This new Java-based operating system simulator allows learning about process planning algorithms and the creation of new ones to evaluate their performance. This tool has been used in class and evaluated by the students in terms of how it supported their understanding of the topic and the usability of the tool. In addition, the grades in similar evaluations are compared to a traditional strategy to assess the tool's impact. The results show that the students had a very positive perception of working with the platform and felt that it indeed helped them to learn the concepts. Also, all students felt more motivated to work with a digital platform compared to a paper-based methodology.