Dr. Stephen Edwards, associate professor in the computer science department in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been selected to receive an XCaliber Award.

The XCaliber Award is awarded annually by the Center for Innovation in Learning in recognition of the outstanding contributions to learning that faculty and staff are making as they develop courseware through technology.

Edwards serves as chair of the subcommittee in charge of courses and curriculum for computer science. He designed the first computer science course for freshmen and is now leading the efforts to redesign the sophomore-level course sequence.

Edwards is being recognized for his development of the Web-based Center for Automated Testing, or Web-CAT. This software system was designed to evaluate student programming assignments and transform the way those assignments are given and assessed in freshmen and sophomore computer science courses.

Web-CAT encourages students to step back and reflect on their work and what they are trying to achieve. Each student is responsible for demonstrating program correctness by writing and running test cases using Edward's software system. Web-CAT then grades students on how well they test their programs. As a result, students who use the software produce an average of 28 percent fewer program bugs and receive higher scores.