Troubleshooters for tasks of introductory programming MOOCs
Lepp, Marina · Palts, Tauno · Luik, Piret · Papli, Kaspar · Suviste, Reelika · Säde, Merilin · Hollo, Kaspar · Vaherpuu, Vello · Tõnisson, Eno
Published | September 2018 |
Journal | The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning Volume 19, Issue 4, Pages 56-75 |
Country | Estonia, Europe |
ABSTRACT
Learning programming has become more and more popular and organizing introductory massive open online courses (MOOCs) on programming can be one way to bring this education to the masses. While programming MOOCs usually use automated assessment to give feedback on the submitted code, the lack of understanding of certain aspects of the tasks and feedback given by the automated assessment system can be one persistent problem for many participants. This paper introduces troubleshooters, which are help systems, structured like decision trees, for giving hints and examples of certain aspects of the course tasks. The goal of this paper is to give an overview of usability (benefits and dangers) of, and the participants’ feedback on, using troubleshooters. Troubleshooters have been used from the year 2016 in two different programming MOOCs for adults in Estonia. These MOOCs are characterized by high completion rates (50–70%), which is unusual for MOOCs. Data is gathered from the learning analytics integrated into the troubleshooters’ environment, letters from the participants, questionnaires, and tasks conducted through the courses. As it was not compulsory to use troubleshooters, the results indicate that only 19.8% of the users did not use troubleshooters at all and 10% of the participants did not find troubleshooters helpful at all. The main difference that appeared is that the number of questions asked from the organizers about the programming tasks during the courses via helpdesk declined about 29%.Keywords | MOOC · open education · programming · troubleshooting system |
Published at | Athabasca, AB |
ISSN | 1492-3831 |
Refereed | Yes |
Rights | Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
DOI | 10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3639 |
URL | http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3639 |
Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
AVAILABLE FILES
Viewed by 149 distinct readers
CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS
The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.










Click a star to be the first to rate this document
▶ POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS
Open education
Pisutova, K.
Introduction to some concepts of openness in education. This presentation addresses concepts of Open Licensing (Creative Commons licenses), Open Content, Open Coursewere, Open Educational Resources, and Open Teaching ...
Match: mooc; open education
Writing to learn and learning to write across the disciplines: Peer-to-peer writing in introductory-level MOOCs
Comer, Denise; Clark, Charlotte; Canelas, Dorian; McGreal, Rory; Conrad, Dianne
This study aimed to evaluate how peer-to-peer interactions through writing impact student learning in introductory-level massive open online courses (MOOCs) across disciplines. This article presents the results of a ...
Match: introductory; mooc
Open educational resources as a tool for educational equity: Evidence from an introductory psychology class
Nusbaum, Amy T.; Cuttler, Carrie; Swindell, Samantha
A college education is becoming increasingly expensive, and the burden of this cost is often felt disproportionately by marginalized students. One aspect of rising college costs are textbook prices, which have increased ...
Match: introductory
Are MOOCs Open Educational Resources? A literature review on history, definitions and typologies of OER and MOOCs
Stracke, Christian M.; Downes, Stephen; Conole, Grainne; Burgos, Daniel; Nascimbeni, Fabio
Open Education gained more visibility as a result of the emergence of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This article discusses whether MOOCs should be considered as OER. Open ...
Match: mooc; open education
Coursera’s introductory human physiology course: Factors that characterize successful completion of a MOOC
Engle, Deborah; Mankoff, Chris; Carbrey, Jennifer
Since Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are accessible by anyone in the world at no cost, they have large enrollments that are conducive to educational research. This study examines students in the Coursera MOOC, ...
Match: introductory; mooc
An architecture based on Linked Data technologies for the integration and reuse of OER in MOOCs context
Piedra, Nelson; Chicaiza, Janneth Alexandra; López, Jorge; Tovar, Edmundo
The Linked Data initiative is considered as one of the most effective alternatives for creating global shared information spaces, it has become an interesting approach for discovering and enriching open educational ...
Match: mooc; open education
Open Education: Introduction to selected papers
Gil-Jaurena, Inés
This issue of Open Praxis compiles selected papers presented at the Open Education Consortium Global Conference, held in Cape Town (South Africa) on March 8-10, 2017. Additionaly, the Innovative Practice section ...
Match: mooc; open education
Refining success and dropout in massive open online courses based on the intention–behavior gap
Henderikx, Maartje A.; Kreijns, Karel; Kalz, Marco
In this paper we present an alternative typology for determining success and dropout in massive open online courses (MOOCs). This typology takes the perspectives of MOOC-takers into account and is based on the their ...
Match: mooc; open education
The battle for open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory
Weller, M.
With the success of open access publishing, Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and open education practices, the open approach to education has moved from the periphery to the mainstream. This marks a moment of victory ...
Match: mooc; open education
Massive Open and Online Courses (MOOC) in an international perspective: New global agenda for innovation in higher education
Titlestad, Gard
This report is written based on a note provided by ICDE’s Secretary General Gard Titlestad to the Norwegian Government. It has been slightly modified to adapt it for an international audience and a working ...
Match: mooc; europe