Small Private Online Judge: A New Tool for Empirical Education Research

This paper puts forward the concept of Small Private Online Judge (SPOJ). Compared with Massive Open Online Judge (MOOJ), SPOJ has advantages in structured data acquisition of students' virtual behavior for its specific function and tight coupling with the classroom. SPOJ-based empirical education research can be conducted within "Acquisition-Analysis-Application" (3A) Framework. The case study of a SPOJ program clarifies the standard pattern of SPOJ-based 3A research and highlights the emergence of education-intelligence concept. The challenges of SPOJ-based empirical education research and implications of SPOJ are also discussed.