A Web-based Answer Platform Implementation for University Course in Flutter Programming Learning Assistant System

Flutter and Dart are increasingly important for cross-platform and mobile development programming. To support this cross-platform programming education for novice students, we have developed the Flutter Programming Learning Assistant System (FPLAS) and implemented the personal web-based answer platform using Node.js. FPLAS simplifies the learning process by utilizing Docker Compose, integrating four Docker images as multi-container instances. Student answers are automatically verified using an image-based user interface (UI) testing method, which compares the generated UI image with a standard one using OpenCV library. In this paper, we present an implementation of FPLAS answer platform in a programming course at Okayama University, Japan. Five basic exercises were prepared and assigned to 21 master’s students. In the course, we asked them to install FPLAS and solve the exercises using it. Their solution results highlight the difficulty differences among the exercises and confirm the efficiency and validity of the platform in the course.