With the current craze surrounding MOOCs, some of the players in the open courseware arena seem to get very little attention. One of the underdogs is the Saylor Foundation, which pursues a unique strategy by curating content from around the Internet, adding original content, bundling it all up into individual modules, and offering examinations. All this happens in collaboration with academics from a wide range of institutions. Currently, the Saylor Foundation offers virtual “degrees” in about a dozen academic disciplines.

I’m not so much interested in Communications or Art History, but I was curious about their offerings in computer science. The Saylor Foundation replicates a basic computer science degree on their website, drawing from a wide range of sources, including MIT OCW and Stanford, but also Khan Academy and, if needed, the occasional blog post or two. I decided to dip my toes into the water and went for their CS101: Introduction to Computer Science I. I have some background in this field, so it was a breeze to go through the material.

At first I was a skeptical about the general approach of the Saylor Foundation since they draw from many sources, seemingly of uneven quality, but I found the material surprisingly engaging. It’s certainly more motivating than going through some of the introductory college-level textbooks I have seen. The main source for CS101 was an interactive tutorial on computer science designed by Bradley Kjell of Central Connecticut State University. Given that many MOOCs are offered by elite universities, some readers may now want to dismiss Saylor, but this would be misguided. CS101 is an introductory class, and you don’t need an academic superstar to teach it.

Kjell’s tutorial is very well-laid out and gradually introduces concepts. Some textbooks have the audacity to tell you to just accept a concept or language feature as fact if you don’t understand it yet, and refer you to a future chapter in which everything would be cleared up. Didactically, I find this to be pretty questionable approach. On the other hand, Kjell does a very thorough job. The only legitimate complaint would be that he might move a bit too slow at times. Thankfully, he isn’t very verbose, so it is easy to skim parts. On the other hand, if you think the pacing is just right, then you can also listen to audio recordings of the material. I preferred reading, but he does have a voice that is very pleasant to listen to.

The presentation may have been a bit archaic, but the content is good. There were even some unexpected highlights like a digression on machine language where students were asked to construct a while loop using machine instructions. The toothbrush has to be instructed to move bristles until it is switched off:

Yes, this is artificial, but it’s a pretty neat exercise nonetheless.

Bradley Kjell’s material focussed on Java. However, Saylor’s CS101 introduces Python early-on to illustrate how concepts are implemented in a different language. I thought this was a very good idea as it broadens your horizon. Normally, introductory courses only focus on one language.

Overall, the content started from first principles, and programming language constructs were introduced very gently. Therefore, CS101 would be a good course for someone with little previous knowledge as some of the introductory CS MOOCs can move rather quickly. You won’t just be exposed to the basic building blocks of computer programs like data types, operators, control structures, or input/output mechanism. There is also the typical brief coverage of fundamental hardware and software concepts. Perhaps surprisingly, software engineering methodologies are very briefly discussed as well, with a brief overview of the waterfall model and its stages.

The only downside might be that there are no interactive programming exercises, and that the (static) programming exercises themselves are not very numerous. However, DrJava is your friend and will serve you well. You probably want to supplement this course with a few Java practice exercises on CodingBat, though.

The final exam is randomly generated. You have to answer 50 multiple-choice questions. If you get at least 70 % right you’ll earn a certificate. If you don’t pass, you can try again after two weeks. I thought that in the final exam the do/while loop and switch statements were too prominent. Sure, they might come in handy at times, but many programmers view them as superfluous language constructs and often ignore them altogether. This is just a minor quibble, though.

Overall, Saylor’s CS101 provides a gentle introduction to computer science. Even though the course doesn’t offer interactive exercises, the format worked surprisingly well. The final exam is a useful feature, too, and it helps distinguish Saylor from other OCW sites.