JSAV and OpenDSA

For a while now, I’ve been working with Cliff Shaffer on the JavaScript Algorithm Visualization (or, JSAV) library. The goal of the library is to provide a modern JavaScript framework for building interactive algorithm visualizations.

This is still early work, but the version 0.2 of the library has just been released. At the moment, the library supports only array data structure and animation effects on that. Building the library is part of my research project on mobile algorithm visualization as well as the larger OpenDSA project. OpenDSA project aims at collaboratively create an active electronic book covering the whole data structures and algorithms course.

The OpenDSA work has been started by creating a somewhat complete chapter on shellsort.

What’s next?

For the next version, we have planned to add support for creating interactive exercises. The exercises will support visualizations of algorithms with stop-and-think questions about the content. Another exercise type will be exercises similar to those in TRAKLA2 where user interacts with the visualization to mimic the behavior of an algorithm. Feedback of correctness as well as model answer as algorithm visualization will also be supported.

Want to contribute?

If you’re interested in contributing to JSAV (and we sure could use the help) or just want to follow the development, head over to the JSAV GitHub repository. Alternatively, you can join the discussions on AlgoViz.org forums.