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.