MOOCs on introductory programming: a travelogue

58 acm Inroads 2013 June • Vol. 4 • No. 2 ➧2 Of the COurses The Udacity course consists of video lectures by Evans, multiple-choice questions interspersed within the lectures, and numerous programming exercises. The context of the lectures and many of the exercises is building a search engine. Programming is done within a browser window and the programs are saved in the cloud. Assessment is performed automatically. The Coursera course consists of video lectures, primarily by Warren and Rixner, with a few lectures given by Greiner. After each group of three lectures, there is a multiple-choice quiz and after two such groups there is a mini-project. The context of the mini-projects is interactive games. Programming is done within a browser and programs are saved in the cloud. Assessment of the quizzes is automatic, while peer assessment is used for the mini-projects.