Porta: Profiling Software Tutorials Using Operating-System-Wide Activity Tracing
summary
Porta records browser events and system events across IDEs, terminals and browsers using operating-system-wide activity tracing and a javac shim with DTrace that logs command lines, stdin/stdout/stderr and any files compiled. It overlays positional and temporal heatmaps and clickable event markers on the original tutorial page, shows errors and screencasts, and surfaces exact commands and files. In a study with 12 learners and 3 instructors Porta yields 28 learner-suggested and 27 instructor-suggested, actionable improvements and moves feedback from vague notes to specific fixes like command formatting and Windows alternatives.
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chapters (9)
- 0:00Introduction and motivation
- 2:14Introducing Porta system
- 5:25Recording system events
- 7:12Toolchain shim and DTrace
- 8:39Visualizing learner data
- 10:05Evaluation and study design
- 12:41Impact on learners and instructors
- 13:46Summary and future work
- 14:07Q&A session
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