Participants' perceptions & expectations

The data on students perceptions and expectations were collected from the 3 surveys (supplementary 2: Survey1_Start, supplementary 3: Survey2_Mid_course and supplementary 4: Survey3_End_course ) disseminated at the start of the course, the mid-point and the end of the course as shown at the times indicated by the S, E and M boxes in Figure \ref{287326}, respectively.  Out of the 73 participants, only 33 (45%)  filled all the 3 surveys (Supplementary_Figure2_Surveys_filled_by_participants), while 15 (21%) never filled any.
The experience of the IBT course is both unique and new to the participants considering its hybrid multi-delivery learning model  \cite{Gurwitz_2017}, and also its extended 3-months time span. On a labeled five-point scale from very uncomfortable to very comfortable, we asked participants about their perspectives in terms of their prior experience level in each IBT course module (start survey); the extent to  which the content was appropriate, and the level it met their expectations (in the mid-course and end surveys, for each module taught up to that point). 
Participants' perceptions for each of the 6 modules of the IBT in its 2017 iteration largely followed the same trend (Supplementary_Figure7,8,9,10,11,12), hence they are illustrated as an average of responses across all modules in  Figure \ref{539431}.  Not surprisingly, participants were largely unfamiliar (or neutral at best) with the various modules,  especially the Linux module given their background (Supplementary_Questionnaire_follow_up or Supplementary_Table2_Graduates_demographics). To the contrary, we see higher satisfaction levels (on average and individually) in terms of satisfaction with the appropriateness of the taught material and meeting participants expectations.