15-01-2013, 03:38 PM
e-Learning Management System Using Service Oriented Architecture
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INTRODUCTION
Service-based architectures take legacy application
functionality and expose it to the Internet in a reliable,
highly available, scalable, flexible, manageable and
secure manner, easy and reliable internet-based method
to create and access learning.
Web service technology has emerged as a new
paradigm of distributed computing. The Service-based
architectures are layered on the top of standard
transfer protocols for transmitting messages that
currently, the most common ones are the XML-based
specification Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP),
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
(UDDI) and Web Service Description Language
(WSDL) (Booth et al., 2003; Kashfi and Razzazi, 2006).
e-Learning is a general term used to refer to a form
of learning in which the instructor and student are
separated by space or time where the gap between the
two is bridged through the use of online technologies.
Many technologies can be and are, used in e-
Learning, including:
· Blogs and wikis
· Collaborative software
· Computer aided assessment
· Discussion boards
· Electronic performance support system
· Learning management systems
· Virtual classrooms
· Web-based teaching materials
· Web-based component services
When beginning to create e-Learning content, the
students’ profiles and courses have to be stored in the
system database and presented using web application to
facilitate the functionality of building an e-Learning
management system.
The proposed system is an advanced, 3-tier,
database-driven using Microsoft ASP.NET 3.5 with
VB.NET. The system is divided into several phases;
each phase describes a number of actions. The model
used in building the system is the “Evolutionary
Model”, because it is easy to use, it allows small
systems to be developed rapidly and it allows user
engagement with the application.
Evolutionary development model uses small,
incremental product releases, frequent delivery to users
and dynamic plans and processes.
J. Computer Sci., 6 (3): 285-295, 2010
electronic learning management system
In Fig. 1 the objective is to evolve a final system
from an initial outline specification starting with wellunderstood
requirements and adding new features as
proposed by the end users.
In this study, the basic concept about the
development process in several modules has been
presented. Rather than deliver the system as a single
delivery, the development and delivery is broken down
into increments with each increment delivering part of
the required functionality.
Figure 2 shows the incremental development
process of the Electronic Learning Management
System. Early increments act as a prototype to help
elicit requirements for later increments. As shown from
the diagram; after the system definition, the
architectural design has been specified and then divides
the system into small increments. The system at that
time needs to be built with these small increments and
validated. This process will be repeated until a final
system has been delivered.
Aims of the system: The main aims of the system are:
· Improve learning accessibility that is, eliminating
barriers to learning that many learners have found
in traditional classrooms
· Improve the interaction between students and
instructors. The system has a question bank facility
where the students can ask questions and send
them to their instructors
· Speed up the reaching for required data and
facilitate the interaction with database records
· Keep data secure. Each student has an account to
authenticate into the system
· Facilitating personalized delivery of content based
on the individual learner’s knowledge and learning
preferences
· Providing tracking and assessment of learners to
measure effectiveness and compliance
· Promoting knowledge sharing through
collaborative learning
· Allow students to choose what to focus on and to
take control of their own learning experience
(Lewis et al., 2002)
· The number of articles and amount of information
that students can access is unlimited
· Providing participants with an extensive list of
summaries of related resources that they can
choose to read, or archive for later use
· Building durable e-Learning contents, regardless of
changes or evolutions in technology. This means
that new content should be added to existing
content without costly redesign, reconfiguration, or
recoding
· Allow students to locate and access instructional
components from one remote location and deliver
to other locations
· The ability for a Web-based Learning Management
System (LMS) to launch content that was authored
using tools from different vendors and to exchange
data with that content
· The ability to launch the same executable content
and to exchange data with that content during
execution while utilizing Web-based LMS
environments from different vendors
· The ability for multiple Web-based LMS
environments to access a common repository of
executable content and to launch such content
· The ability to move an entire course from one LMS
to another