Development of Hands-on IP Network Practice System with Automatic Scoring Function

The purpose of this study is to give students hands-on practical learning for IP network skills. We have been developing the hands-on IP network practice system using virtual machines. Students can practice IP network skills freely at anytime on just one general-purpose PC. We have implemented this system by applying the virtual Linux environment User Mode Linux. In this research, we developed two new functions for this system. First, we developed the Automatic Scoring Function. This function compares student´s configuration files and teacher´s configuration files. Then, this function can show a result as a percentage of correct answer. In addition, this function can display the details of items that are incorrect. Using this function, students are able to find that their network configurations are correct or incorrect by themselves. Students are able to do self-service training and testing all in one place. Second, we developed the Assignment Making Support Function. Teachers are able to make assignments by using this function easily. To evaluate new functions, this system was experimented. The results indicated that this system had sufficient performance for introductory network courses for undergraduate students.