A HYBRID APPROACH TO COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION

Towards a hybrid approach
to Computer Science Software
Engineering at Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki - Greece

The case of computer science education
& open source software communities

CSEDU2009, Lisbon – Portugal
Meiszner, A., Moustaka, K., Stamelos, I.

Learning is a silent and often invisible PROCESS

Offline

Reading (from
●

book)
● Doing exercises

● Thinking

● etc.

Reading (from
●

screen)
● Doing exercises

● Thinking

● etc.

Online

Though the PROCESS of Learning might become visible

Offline

Discussions
●

● Group work

● etc.

Discussions
●

● Group work

● etc.

Online

The artifacts created within the learning PROCESS might
even become a LEARNING RESOURCE for others
Offline

Notes
●

● Commented copies

● Paper based exercises

Notes
●

● Commented texts

● Exercises

● Forum or blog posts

● Full range web 2.0

tools offer
Online

Learner generated resources might also become a part of
(course) learning materials...
Offline
 Last year exams
 Student tutorials
 etc.

 All types of
user generated
content that is
linked / connected
in a somewhat
structured way to
further (learning)
Online
materials

... therefore contributing to a continuous improvement and evolutionary
growth... materials, processes, spaces, tools, community...

One cycle, many names... Kaizen, CPI, PDCA,...

This happens offline as well as online – with pros & cons...

Offline
Pro
Con
● Usually more
• Much remains invisible
structured (e.g.
• Much is lost
Tutorials, learning
• Not automatically Pro
groups)
preserved • High visibility
● Face2face
• Content and context • Fast / global / open
interactions
usually isolated • Low (information)
• Slow / local / closed loss – though need to
be found
Con
• Automatically
● Usually less structured
preserved
● Need to dig-in and
• Content and context
understand the
usually connected
environment / community
● Usually no Face2face

Online
interaction

Advantages of traditional educational structures
vs.
Advantages of Open Source communities as a learning space

Some advantages of traditional educational structures

• Educator input – to provide students with guidance and support.
• Structure – learners approaching a new subject area value the structure
and focus offered.
• Learning objectives – to set out for students what they should be able
to learn through the experience.
• Assessment – some form of formal assessment and the possibility to
obtain a degree or certification
• Face2face interaction with others – students as well as educators.

Some advantages of online learning communities – lessons
learnt from open source
• A greater range of inputs – not just from the educator, but from all contributors so the
collective is the source of knowledge, not one individual
• A more personalized learning experience – learners can gather the elements of
knowledge they require – but skip what they know already.
• Greater sharing of knowledge – in higher education much of the previous input is lost,
whereas in FLOSS the dialogue, resources, and outputs remain as learning resources =>
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT & EVOLUTIONARY GROWTH.
• Peer production – active engagement in producing something with a set of peers is a
powerful motivational and educational driving force.
• Real activities – engaging in legitimate activities that are not restricted to an artificial
university setting also provides valuable experience.
• Peer support – a large support network provided voluntarily by peers in a collaborative
manner nearly 24/7.
• Open learning environment – The sum is bigger than its parts, thus there is the need of
providing new educational models and scenarios that are not limited to students formally
enrolled at a course.

Now, how to take advantage of the learning opportunities the web
provides, but keeping desirable traditional characteristics?
...
We first analyzed how online learning communities function on the
example of open source communities
...
We than had a look how some recently piloted open courses were run
online – and how they worked out
...
With this understanding we subsequently drew up three application
scenarios for (higher) educational settings:
inside, outside or hybrid approach

Open Educational Scenarios: ‘inside approach’

• The inside approach takes principles found in open source communities and applies them
within a (higher) education context.
• This involves mapping the key principles onto education, including an evolutionary
growth of the course and its environment.
• Current students would build upon the work of earlier students developing course and
content further year by year, therefore improving content quality and richness and
providing regular feedback.
• Such feedback might refer to course structure, material, processes and tools.
• The inside approach thus takes the sort of characteristics and tools found in open source
as its inspiration.
• Within the inside approach institutions might also decide to ‘open up’ their virtual
learning environments to fellow universities or the general public to view what is going on
within the environment.
• Institution might even allow those outside groups to participate and engage at this
environment, in the case doing so, this likely would be a first step towards a ‘hybrid
approach’.

Limitations of the ‘inside approach’

• The outside world remains largely or totally disconnected, depending on the degree of
openness (e.g. open to view, open to participate, etc.).
• ‘Community building’ and ‘evolutionary growth’ is per-se limited within a given
institution that only involves the own student population, and usually even further limited
due to
• (a) a 100% student turnover per semester / course and
• (b) a comparatively small number of potential community member (formally
enrolled students of a course).
• Students are kept within the institutions learning environment preventing their ‘semi-
structured’ engagement and collaboration within the wider web.
• Therefore limiting the opportunities of ‘best of breed’, as the wider web might provide
better technological solutions or already established and mature communities for respective
study fields.

Open Educational Scenarios: ‘outside approach’
• The outside approach might take traditional education as the starting point by
providing theoretical information and then sends the students ‘outside’ to find well
established communities, such as the open source ones, to work within those
communities and to apply and deepen their theoretical knowledge.
• Students are sent into already well established and mature environments to engage at
and collaborate within those communities on pre-defined tasks.
• Students are provided with an initial academic background and then required to choose
and engage within a real world project.
• This gives students real experience of collaborating with others.
• This approach can be realized whenever there is an external ‘real’ community that is
operating on principles such as e.g. common for open source, or also Wikipedia.
• The outside approach might be the least complex and almost cost neutral; and therefore
relatively easy to implement.

Limitations of the ‘outside approach’

• The results of this collaborative learning and knowledge production remains within the
outside community and…
• Therefore likely will be lost for future students.
• The outside approach does not provide next year students (newbies) with an easy
access as no former learners, nor the resources they created, are present at the
institutional level to facilitate the newbie entrance.
• The outside approach does not foster an evolutionary growth and continuous
improvement of the institutional / course environment.

Open Educational Scenarios: ‘hybrid approach’
• A hybrid approach combines components of the inside and outside approach.
• Some of the principles of open source communities are adopted within the institution
(inside approach), with activities occurring in a broader ecosystem consisting of various
spaces that are open for everyone combining students, informal learners, tutors, experts,
organizations, etc, allowing learners to engage in a real community (outside approach).
• It allows a continuous evaluation (by educators, students and the wider world) of what
‘the best of both worlds’ is and how the transferred elements actually suit in their
respective new environments.
• A hybrid approach could also be a response to challenges such as a 100% student
turnover per semester as (a) not all participating students should start at the same time and
(b) free learners outside of formal education and practitioners are not bound to any course
schedule.
• A hybrid approach would include a number of environments where students could
engage at in a ‘semi-structured’ way and where guidance and support is provided through
technologies (e.g. RSS, suggested contents, etc.) and humans (e.g. educators, knowledge
brokers, community support, etc.).

So much about the theory

...

The ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ approaches have been succesfully piloted
within (higher) educational settings

...

The ‘hybrid’ approach promises the highest gain – BUT – also comes at
the highest complexity

...

Would it work out in practice within the current educational frameworks
we are opperating at?

A hybrid approach to Software Engineering at Aristotle
University – the NetGeners.Net pilot

• We developed an experimental hybrid learning environment
• Run subsequently a small scale 4 month trial with 10 volunteering students from
Greece and Spain (located in 5 different countries)
• That were supported on a regular base by 1 educator and 2 further less regular
participating ones.
• The environment provided the same type of tools as identified within the open source
case
• It was aimed to provide learners on the one hand with a basic ‘on-board’ set of
communication and collaboration tools (Blog, Chat, Forum and Wiki) and on the other
hand providing a personal space and a space for personal learning projects, including
rating and commenting systems as e.g. provided by Amazon.
• We also took into account open source particularities such as modularity and project
based work through the concept of small students driven learning projects


Small students driven learning projects should allow learners to engage (to a certain
degree) within areas of their personal interest; individually or together with other
learners as a group work, therefore:
• contributing to the overall development of the learning environment.
• providing a potential bridge between ‘static’ content on the one hand and learning
processes and activities (discourse) on the other hand that might allow a similar type of
‘re-experience’ as in open source.
• allowing an open source type engagement, where content is often taken forward and
backward, contextualized, adapted, translated, re-mixed, embedded into processes or
feed into new products by individuals. Those individuals act as knowledge brokers
allowing content to be dynamic and causing it to continuously change.
• allowing learners to become an active participant in the respective study field, to
acquire subject matter skills through practice, and providing the potential of gaining key
and soft skills as a result of their activities and engagement.

...

following steps

...


Objectives:
 To apply an open approach to Software Engineering that allows taking
advantage of the opportunities the web provides
 To bring together students from different institutions, free learner outside of
formal education and open source communities in a 'semi-structured' way
 To allow students and free learner to learn with practitioners of open source
projects by providing an easy entrance for the first and low burdens for the later...
 And therefore opening up education and combining formal with informal
learning


The piloted course, some facts:
• Fifth semester course ‘Introduction in Software Engineering’
• Since 2005 adopted an ‘outside approach’
• Duration of the course is 12, 5 weeks and has an average student number of 150
• One of the students’ assignments being to participate at an open source project,
counting for 40% of the total grade
• Students can choose between three options: (1) to test open source code, (2) to
develop open source code, or (3) to write a requirement specification documentation
for an open source project that still had none
• Also, students can work on their assignments beyond the 12,5 weeks of the official
lecturing period and submitting it at a later time at 3 pre-defined dates per year – This
'theoretically' leaves space for some type of continuity beyond semester terms


The starting challenge:
• The initial cohort of students for the year 2008/2009 won’t be able to gain from
earlier students’ works…
• So how can we provide an added value once they would use the online environment
(without ‘forcing them’ to do so)?
• Apparently regular chats, prompt responses to forum posts, or initial content uploaded
is not enough…
• Bringing into this environment fellow university students, free learners and open
source practitioners could add this extra value, since this can’t be provided ‘offline’! –
So how to inform and attract fellow universities and open source projects?

...

and further to this

...

more generally speaking

...

there are a number of related questions to be taken into account

...


(Organizational) Questions:
How to fit the structured learning as provided in traditional (offline) education
●

into the unstructured open virtual learning environments the web provides?
In which way might online learning activities be organized to provide the same
●

“evolutionary growing open participatory learning ecosystem” that e.g. the open
source case shows and at which learning processes and outcomes become an
integrated part of this ecosystem therefore being a learning resource for future
learner and leading to a continuous improvement of products and processes?
How to bring the different stakeholders (my students, fellow students, free learner,
●

practitioners and educators) together in such a semi-structured open environment?

(Motivation / Incentive) Questions:
• Motivations to participate at open source are e.g. ‘to learn’, ‘gaining reputation’ or
‘personal enjoyment’
• Providing a clear ‘win / win scenario’ between information seeker and information
provider resulting in learning benefits for both sides
• Motivations to participate in formal education mainly relate to obtain a formal degree!
So:
• What would be the motivation for formally enrolled students to become
active and assume roles as to be found in open source?
• What would be the motivation for free learners and practitioners to
participate at such an open learning environment?
• How to create the type of win / win scenarios as can be found in open
source?

How to address this within the educational frameworks we are acting in ?!?


(Motivation / Incentive) Possible Answers:
• To reward students who voluntarily assume positions, e.g. similar to project or
community managers in open source.
• To include into the curricula the obligation of more experienced students to share their
knowledge with the less experienced.
• Incentives for practitioners to participate would be to involve learners into concrete
project works – e.g. to provide computer science students with the opportunity to take on
some tasks at a respective open source project.
• Allow participants to build up an online repute – analogue to open source – where
informally attained skills in are provable therefore providing a positive value on the labour
market.
•Free learners outside of formal education might also be offered a certification of their
learning outcomes against fees, or a virtual credit account that rewards them for taking on
roles such as mentor, facilitator, moderator or tutor. Those virtual credits than might be
used to pay for assessment and certifications.

…

So, how did it work so far?

…

…
Slow
…
we are still at the beginning
…
still need to involve the different stakeholders: fellow
universities & open source projects
…
2008/2009 might not have
been the best year to choose

…

Let’s recall some benefits

…

WHY

…

Such hybrid approach could be of interest to

fellow universities & open source projects


Advantages for open source projects?
● Share the burden of newbie integration to the open source world as a joint venture

of higher education institutions and open source projects, and
● Therefore build up a synergy of scale

● Identify potential contributors early

● Students' contribute to the open source project, and might continue doing so

beyond the course duration
● Help learners to learn by contributing to a given project at the same time


Advantages for (higher) education institutions?
● A richer learning experience for your students

● The opportunity to create a learning community, which is not possible within

closed traditional educational settings
● To establish a learning ecosystem that is continuously improving and growing in a

natural evolutionary way
● To assure that subjects meet actual demands, curriculum is up to date and courses

are taught in the best way possible (double feedback loops)
● To work together with fellow educational institutions and open source

communities and thereby sharing the burden of developing such novel educational
provision
● In the long tale: To establish new revenue models, by e.g. providing free learners

outside of formal education with assessment and certification options against fees
(as said, the long tale)

University – the NetGeners.Net pilot (1/2)

What’s in it for students (and free learners)
● Learn together with other students, free learners outside of formal education and

enthusiasts from open source projects!
● Learn from reviewing and studying the learning project activities, outcomes and

presentations from others – build upon what others did, this can be much easier
than starting from scratch!
● Collaborate and get in touch with peers and practitioners within a real life

situation!
● Find help!

● Socialize and experience learning within a joyful and interesting environment!

● Do something meaningful by contributing to actual open source projects, gain

repute and expertise – add an extra to your CV!

University – the NetGeners.Net pilot (2/2)

What’s in it for students (and free learners)
● Learn how to update your skills and knowledge self-dependently within a lifelong

learning context
● Learn how to take full advantage of the web to support your own learning, to collaborate

with others and use the tools required to do so
● Be capable to find sources at the web and to critically evaluate and analyze them

● Be aware about available free online and desktop software solutions that facilitate

learning, knowledge exchange and collaboration
● Know how to find online communities, to engage in them for personal support, and to and

understands the way they function
● In a nutshell: To gain today's required soft skills; like to communicate, collaborate and

engage in discussions with others, defend your own work and thoughts and present them,
know how to manage a project, or how to resolve conflicts

Oh, and just to recall: What this is about and what not!!!

 It is about finding new ways on how to organize collaborative learning, sharing
and knowledge production within a participatory web 2.0 world using technology
for the sake of its usefulness and bringing together the various stakeholders

 It is not about designing complex socio-technological systems for the sake of
technology hoping that it would become a killer application to revolutionize
education as we know it

 The idea is to start simple, to see what works out and what not, and to develop it
further step by step based on the experiences gathered

Thanks for your attention!

Andreas Meiszner (a.meiszner@open.ac.uk)

Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
MK7 6BJ Walton Hall, UK

Katerina Moustaka (katerinamus@yahoo.gr)

Ioannis Stamelos (stamelos@csd.auth.gr)

Department of Informatics
Aristotle University
54124 Thessaloniki, Greece

A HYBRID APPROACH TO COMPUTER SCIENCE EDUCATION

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