Massive, Partially Online CS1 Course

Abstract

The Open University of Israel (OUI) has an open admissions policy and is based primarily on distance learning. As in other universities, our CS1 course includes the topics recommended in the Computer Science Curricula (2013). The large number of students who register for the course (from 700-900 students per semester) presents us with unique challenges in management. In this paper, we describe the efforts we have devoted to making the learning and teaching process as uniform as possible for all students taking the course. We describe the research we conducted in order to ascertain whether there is a correlation between regular or intensive tutoring groups and student success in CS1 and whether the specific tutors affect student success. We were satisfied that the teaching of our course is quite uniform.