New approaches to efficiency of massive online course
This paper is focused on efficiency of e-learning, in general, and massive online course in programming and information technology, in particular. Several innovative approaches and scenarios have been proposed, developed, implemented and verified by the authors, including 1) a new approach to organize and use automatic immediate feedback that significantly helps a learner to verify developed code and increases an efficiency of learning, 2) a new approach to construct learning interfaces - it is based on “develop a code - get a result - validate a code” technique, 3) three scenarios of visualization and verification of developed code, 4) a new multi-stage approach to solve complex programming assignments, 5) a new implementation of “perfectionism” game mechanics in a massive online course. Overall, due to implementation of proposed and developed approaches, the efficiency of massive online course has been considerably increased, particularly 1) the additional 27.9 % of students were able to complete successfully “Web design and development using HTML5 and CSS3” massive online course at ITMO University, and 2) based on feedback from 5588 students a “perfectionism” game mechanics noticeably improves students’ involvement into course activities and retention factor.