Proprietary versus Open Source Software in Support of Learning in Computer Science

Abstract

The topic of learning Computer Science had been the subject of many researches. From time to time, this topic flows to the surface especially when Computing instructors report students’ difficulties in acquiring the necessary knowledge. On the other hand, different studies had tackled the issue of open source software in computing education from different perspective. These studies, in general, conflict with the positions taken by the different suppliers of proprietary software. This paper will investigate the contributions of both categories of software in the process of computer science learning, and then will compare these contributions to the principles of active learning in computer science, to conclude which of the 2 categories is more advantageous.