ADAPTIVE ONLINE TEACHING MATERIALS FOR INTERNET,

INTRANET AND MOBILE DEVICES FOR MCUC STUDENTS

D. Balaji, J. Akbar Ali

Faculty of Technology, Majan College (University College) In affiliation with University of Bedfordshire, UK

Post Box no: 710, Postal Code: 112, Ruwi, Sultanate of Oman

B. Malathi

Department of Computer Science, Ramakrishna Engineering College, Coimbatore, India

Keywords: Adaptive, wireless, learning.

Abstract : Academicians in this Information age are trying different teaching methods for the effective learning by

different background students. Online teaching method is not only effective for distance learning but also

for teaching in a traditional method through intranet. Since MCUC has WLAN, allowing the students to

access online materials through mobile devices with in college premises and also through internet it can be

accessed anywhere and anytime. Since different program students are using laptops, PDA's and mobile

phones to access these information's it is necessary to provide personalised experience for their convenience

while learning through showing the frequently accessed links or arranging the links based on the

accessibility or listing the links as per the students preference using Adaptive Navigation Support technique.

We also tried to use different methods to improve the performance of the website and reduce the

development cost.

1 INTRODUCTION

Recent survey with the students of MCUC from

different programs, shows that 95% of the students

are depending on the desktop and Laptop for

browsing online teaching materials of their modules.

Because of the limitations with the screen size of the

mobile devices like PDA's or mobile phones only

5% of the students showing interest in using these

devices for anytime and anywhere learning, even

though these devices having more advantages

compared to laptops. Hence it is important to use

some methods to make the users browsing speed

equal to browsing in laptop. We are discussing

effective mobile device and user-models of

browsing methods, for college students to browse

their online teaching materials fast and effective. As

researchers we are trying to design a website that

can be personalised by the student while browsing

anytime and anywhere using mobile device like

PDA. Selecting the best mobile device is not in our

scope; hence by assuming PDA as a best device we

conducted this research. Similarly discussing the

WLAN structure will divert the main theme of this

research paper and narrow down the concept to

accessing the information via mobile devices in a

campus network. Hence we did not get in to details

of WLAN architecture. Even though it is applicable

for the system which helps to access the information

through campus wide network in the absence of

internet, we are concentrating on the anywhere and

anytime concept by including website which can be

accessed by internet.

2 WEB PERSONALISATION

Browsing is an exciting experience for anyone. But

this will not be the case for the students when they

are browsing the college link for their subject

information's with out any diversion in the

navigation. This kind of approach can be called as

goal directed browsing. PDA's can be used by the

students for gaol directed browsing, then browsing

559

Balaji D., Akbar Ali J. and Malathi B. (2007).

ADAPTIVE ONLINE TEACHING MATERIALS FOR INTERNET, INTRANET AND MOBILE DEVICES FOR MCUC STUDENTS.

In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and e-Government /

e-Learning, pages 559-562

DOI: 10.5220/0001291105590562

 SciTePress

experience will be a tedious and tiring. When we

have some idea about the intention of the people's

who is visiting the website, it will be easy to

improve the browsing experience. Improvement can

be done by avoiding information overload and

disorientation. Adaptive Navigation Support

technique help students to personalise their browsing

experience related to their program they are

studying, semester they registered and the links they

are usually interested. This facility also highlights

the links of interested and not displaying the other

links. Simply it can be done by sorting the links

again based on the student's interest. Adaptive

Navigation Support technique can be finding within

Adaptive Hypermedia Systems. Due to the

limitations in the mobile devices like smart phones

and PDA's, it is important to improve the

performance of the websites by personalising for the

student's interest. Other wise it will be difficult to

implement anytime and anywhere learning among

the students using (wireless) mobile devices.

3 WHY M-LEARNING?

"Successful technologies are those that are in

harmony with end-users needs"

- Ben Shneiderman (2002)

Recent surveys prove that mobile phones are no

more going to be used only as a communication

device. It can be used as a still digital camera, video

recorder, storage device (up to 2 GB) and file

compiler. Apart from these all, it can be use along

with computers. Computer and mobile phones can

be use together and share information between them.

However, other than technologies, now days,

education is not only for the regular students (full

time students). Awareness and necessity of

education became unavoidable for all age group

people and for any kind of people. People have to

learn through out their lifetime (this is called life

long learning) to keep them competent and update

with the recent developments in their field.

This is a great challenge to the academic institutes to

provide service to these people as per their

convenience. Since anytime and anywhere learning

concept is very important for most of the students,

we are going to select a technology for life long

learning. Till today e-learning is the hot cake for the

students who prefer to educate them through

distance education. But e-learning helps students to

study only from any place. But they cannot study

anytime. Hence only alternate for this problem is m-

learning. Since it help students to learn anytime

and anywhere with advance features such as

convenient, collaborative, portable, content and

compatible. Hence m-learning may become a prime

technology for any kind of education and most

opting technology for all types of students.

4 M-LEARNING WITH PDA'S /

SMART PHONES

Personal Digital Assistants are also called as pocket

PCs or handheld PCs. The advantages of these

devices are, they are very compatible (can fit into

the hand), portable, can be taken with the people and

it supports using these device on moving. Actually

they were developed as electronic organizers to store

addresses, tasks, text information and as a calculator.

By the continuous up gradations in these devices,

they were converted from ordinary organizers to

mini PCs. Compared to normal PCs, it is very cheap,

can be carry by the people (can be kept in one's

pocket), and battery power is more than 10 hours.

Features of these devices include word processing,

spread sheet processing and web browsing via

wireless connection to company network. It can

transfer data across short distances, i.e. between

units through infrared communication. Many PDAs

come with docking stations in order for them to be

connected to desktop computers, allowing data to be

synchronized between the two devices. It is also

coming with camera and MP3 capabilities. Smart

phones are mobile phones combined with pocket

PCs. These are coming with external keyboard

(foldable) and with the touch sensitive screens with

stylus pens. The communication between the devices

can be done by SMS, MMS and infrared

communications. Recent mobile phones are blue

tooth enabled for the WAP communication. The

advantages of using these devices as m-learning

tools are it makes just-in-time learning possible, it

Figure 1: Simple WLAN Topology.

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enables effective and fast communication between

devices, it makes learning as a fun, and additional

accessibilities make handling these devices easy and

motivate personal commitment of learning. But

compared to other PCs it has few disadvantages also.

5 ADAPTIVE HYPERMEDIA

SYSTEMS

Adaptive Hypermedia Systems goals are "to build a

model of the goals, preferences, and knowledge of

each user, and use this model throughout the

interaction with the user, in order to adapt to the

needs of that user" (Brusilovsky, 2001). In MCUC

system we are using typical AHS function in which

we can find Adaptive Navigation System technique.

It maintains a model of students or browsing users

knowledge based on some attributes like the whether

the user chosen the link before or not. This can be

identified based on the observation while the end

user or student browsing the site. It will be

important for a user model to be applied for

classifying the links into groups based on the interest

and the information about the students registration.

The system uses this user model to manipulate links

to guide users towards interesting and relevant

information using a technique which Brusilovsky

calls as Adaptive Navigation Support (Brusilovsky,

1996). Depending on the class of the node a link

leads to, the link could be specially annotated,

ordered, disabled, or removed. The manipulation of

links is done in the following ways within our

system:

Expected next link: Listing the link with next or

continue option, which is most appropriate for that

user group predicted from the user model.

Sorting the link: Arranging the links based on

the prediction and give priority for each link and list

the links with high priority links at the top and the

least priority links at the bottom. This model we can

find in goal directed educational system usually.

Hiding the link: Links leading to inappropriate

or non-relevant information are hidden.

6 USER MODELLING

The users can be categorising in to three types. They

are beginner, intermediate or expert. This

categorisation can be done based on the navigational

behaviour of a user and the type of document they

view when they are browsing. This modelling will

help us to build a model of the goals and preference

of those users. This should be used throughout the

interactions of the users with the website, to adapt to

their needs. User models should be trained, so that

when a usual visitor visits a specific part of the web

page with a user model and has any one user type

will predict about future navigation can be assumed

with the help of the Markov model. But for the new

user visiting a specific part of the web page and the

flow will be recorded to train the user model and

assign a user model. The Markov model comes from

Markov chains, which are sequences of random

variables in which the future variable is determined.

A Markov model contains a single variable, the

state, and specifies the probability of each state and

of transiting from one state to another (Anderson,

Domingos and Weld, 2002). With the help of this

model the student's goal predicts and the index page

of predicted link will be produced dynamically. This

should be displayed in their mobile device in the

way the students can access the information which

they are looking for, fast and efficient way. At the

same time this model is not always advantageous,

particularly when a web designer needs to make

changes in the model during special situations.

7 HYBRID SYSTEM

Hybrid system is the best system for the MCUC web

page, since the web designer no needs to specify the

models or optionally specify the changes in the

models. Hybrid system will always generate

personalisation automatically. The announcement

from the college or new downloads or the

assignments should go the students attention

immediately. This can be achieved by change the

popularity of the file. This will display in the index

page of predicted links even though it has not been

viewed before. Otherwise if a website was accessed

by any student that will be in the index page of

predicted links. Announcements like semester

results of the students, important event in the college

like graduation ceremony or open day and

information about the event also can get the same

high priority by changing the popularity of the files.

Hence the automated approach may not have these

advantages always.

ADAPTIVE ONLINE TEACHING MATERIALS FOR INTERNET, INTRANET AND MOBILE DEVICES FOR MCUC

STUDENTS

561

8 CONCLUSION

This paper has presented the simple conceptual

framework for a personalised website browsing

experience through mobile system for the learner

community who need to learn by anywhere and

anytime. Even though there are many researches

have been carried out by many organizations in the

same field, this concept is very much new to

Middle-East Asia and students are new to these

types of tools for learning. Personalisation and

adaptation in web browsing helps students to access

the required information quickly and this advantage

will compensate the limitations of the mobile

devices. When the links are not misleading a

student when they are looking for a specific set of

information will save the student's time and effort,

also increase the student satisfaction. Increased

students satisfaction can lead to both increased

faculty satisfaction and higher student retention.

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