DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF E-LEARNING WEB PORTAL

By

Author

Presented To

Department of Computer Science

ABSTRACT

The tremendous impact of electronic technology (like computer and computer embedded devices, computer networking, artificial intelligence, multimedia among others) on the human psychological capabilities productivity, intellectuality and other human related activities are very obvious. The quest and virtual implementation of computer in all the fields of human endeavor increases with its inevitable impact, these impacts are on its increase due to the need for high quality and timely response. Therefore, this project titled, design and implementation of e-learning platforms for student, is aimed    at exploring and incorporating some of these sophisticated technologies for the development of electronic tutorial materials. This work examines and explains the step-by-step procedure for accomplishing the development of the proposed software products, the attainment of the goals and necessary requirement for their implementation. It considers and discusses the impact of the proposed products on the targeted end-users. This project is implemented using HTML, Microsoft asp.net and SQL Server for the online learning platform tutorial application package, and an e-book.

1. 1. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This project uses the combination of multimedia features, little artificial intelligence features, and human "computer interaction principles for the development of a web site for an online and implementation offline implementation of e-learning Both of the e-learning are designed for the learning of computer science courses at its introductory level These proposed e-learning avenues are deviations from the traditional teaching and learning procedure, and as a result have their main importance as follows:

1. Effective learning of the subject topic by the students- the traditional classroom methods have high tendencies of responding to the many factors affecting effecting learning (see table 1 in the appendix for more information) But with the adoption of e-learning, these factors may exist with little or no impact on the learner Hence, this project is focused on developing e-learning application that will be captivating through the provision of different learning platforms and skillful use of multimedia which will lead to the enhancing of effective learning and reduction of teachers teaching work load
2. Cost of learning materials-could be reduced significantly when compared to the cost of traditional learning materials or the cost of conventional instructional system This is, however, accomplished in this project by providing free access with limited content value to the user
3. Reduction in the duration of teaching and learning, and strengthening of teachers effort-according to some research, the training time could be reduced up to sixty percent (60%) as against the traditional classroom method using e-learning products (khoo, 1994) These, in turn, increase the rate of knowledge assimilation and allow the teachers to direct more effort on other areas where the students are deficient This is basically achieved in this project the use of certain technological features such as the multimedia features

Apart from these main importance of the study, other reasons like protecting the students from assimilating wrong information passed on by the quack, the inadequate learning and teaching materials, difficulties to have access to information on time, and the general factors affecting effective learning could take care of

1. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The proposed e-learning products are targeted for the attainment of effective learning through the use of interactive presentations Further, the products are expected to be used by computer science students The product contents are structured to accommodate novice in computer courses and their usage  are not limited to computer science students alone but to students of other disciplines who wish to have basic fundamental knowledge

In the development of the proposed products, certain security consciousness likes piracy where moderately considered while some security measures like password were implemented Each of the proposed e-learning products have different security requirement On the side of the e-learning application package, password usage was implemented for discriminating the premium users from the free users The internet application is designed to have an open unrestricted accessibility; this is to boost products awareness and marketing The e-book is created in portal document format (PDF) so as to ensure content authenticity Nonetheless, the three e-learning products do not implement any strong piracy security due to the fact that day after day more sophisticated hardware and software are developed which, in the contrary reason for their development and usage, used for computer product piracy Finally, the physiological and cognitive impact of the proposed e-learning products on their users have their scope for achieving them limited to the use of multimedia features and interface design This is one of the most important tasks required to be embedded in the products In this learning application package, this is accomplished through the use of help menu and help animations, the internet application accomplishes the same task through the use of hyperlinks, flash animations, and still images while the e-book made use of hyperlinks and still images

1. LIMITATION AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Apart from the usual risk and limitation present in every project due to time, scope, quality and financing, a major limitation arises from the gathering of information or data from the concerned individuals with fair and un-bias judgment of the proposed e-learning products Many of the individual, especially the expected users, were unwilling to give feedback on the impact of the proposed products on them while some other will prefer to give haphazard information which tantamount dirty data In addition, the tendency of receiving unfair and bias information and materials (which ranges from reference materials to development support devices) required for actualizing the proposed e-learning products specifications posed a great impediment to the study Nevertheless, in the attempt to overcome these impediments, the research work of other scholars and practitioners were used in conjunction with the result of my project research evacuation and analysis This approach is adopted to ensure accurate and good developmental practices

Considering the multi-tasking nature of the project, much time and financial resources are required Owing to this fact, specifications of the proposed e-learning products were adjusted to suit the available financial budget allocated to it and which is obtainable However, efforts were made, towards retaining the e-learning products quality, accomplishing of the projects objectives and completion of the project within the specified period of time

17 DEFINITION OF TERMS

Software " a set of logical related program modules that are given to the computer for the accomplishment of a specific task or asset of task

Program module " this is made up of one or more program procedure, routine, function, or events that handle a definite task or set of task

Program procedure " a set of program codes that response to a particular action such as click or could be called for execution from another program procedure depending on its scope

Program routine " see program procedure

Program function " this is of ascribe to program procedure that is used for accomplishing a specific task, especially mathematical operations, whenever call for execution

World Wide Web: World Wide Wed simply called www is the most

                                  important tool of the Internet It was created ion the late

                               1980s in Europe and was used limitedly in academic

File Transfer:       Any kind of computer file can be sent via the Internet

                                from one Internet user to another Table of accounts on

                              spreadsheets, design by a graphic artists, music sound

                              files etc, can all be exchanged in this way

Web Brower:       This is a special kind of software that processes hypertext

                               make-up language (HTML) document In other words, a

                              web browser is a computer program that interprets HTML

                            command to collect, arranged and display the parts of a

                  web page

Web Site:  A website is a collection of many interconnected web pages

                 organized by a specific college, organization company etc,

                  containing web pages (good and commodities) on the Internet

                  Web site are stored on web servers There are many web site and

                 thousand of HTML pages on each web site A web site is a

                 treasure of information and entertainment

 Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks are highlighted words and phrase you find on web

                    documents that you can click on as to jump to some other

                   documents or Internet services

Online:        Connected via a computer attached to or available via a central

                   computer network

Offline:       Disconnected from computer network; describes a computer

                    terminal or peripheral device disconnected from a computer

                    network

Program- a set of logical related instruction codes that is given to the computer which enables it to perform a specific task or events

Application " this is synonymous to application software or application package Application software is a class of software that runs on an operating system and its design to handle a specified task related to any human career

Operating system " it is a set of logical related programs which enables the computer to manage its resources The resources which it manages are hardware components

System software " this is a class of software that are made up of other suit of software designed to enable the computer handle its resources and carry out some set of task The system software comprises of operating system, program translators, editors and utility programs

Translator " this is synonymous to program translator or language translator or programming language translator This is software whose function is to translate or transform program codes written in one programming language level to another (from high level programming language code to low level programming language codes) A translator could be an assembler, an interpreter or a compiler

Dirty information " this is also known as dirty data It is information that does not conform to the directives for its supply Example: supplying your date of birth as against date of employment using the title finger instead of ring finger in a finger print which requires ring finger

High level programming language " this is a class of programming language that is much closer to human language It requires program translator for its codes to make meaning and be executed by the computer Examples of high level programming language are BASIC, JAVA, HTML, C++ and PASCAL

BASIC " this is a high level programming language, is very simple and less difficult to learn and use It can come in the form of command oriented programming language eg QBasic  or could come in the form of object oriented programming language eg visual basic

HTML " this is one of the programming languages which could be used for developing web documentsHTML stands for hypertext markup language Other languages that could be for web development are XML (extended markup language) and XHTML (extended hypertext markup language)

Programming language " this is a set of operation of grammatical rules (syntax or protocol) use for written and developing instructional codes given to the computer for task performance

Programming language application software " this is application software designed to allow the user write and develop program and/or application using a particular programming language For instance,  visual Basic programming language

Interpreter " this is a kind language translator that translates high level programming codes equivalent and at the same time executes the program codes line after line, this is achieved if and only if the line of code is error free

Compiler " this is a kind of language translator that translates high level programming language code into its low level programming language codes equivalent and makes it executable only if this entire program code is error free

Low level programming language " this is a class of programming language that requires language translators for it to be understandable by the computer This class of programming language has the characteristics of machine independency, easer to debug and comparatively show during program execution Example, Basic, FORTAN, java, Pascal, C, C++ among others

Debug " this refers to detecting and correcting or removing errors contained in a source program

Source program " this is a set of program codes that contains the instructions and response to events It is usually used in guiding the computer on the reaction to take place or the specific task to carryout for a given action The source program codes are usually executed by the computer and are not to be seen by the user especially if the target program is application software

User interface " the environment that is seen by the end-user of application software which allows the end-user to make use of it

Event " An action that is made by the computer system though its input devices or software

Object code " codes that are displayed as a result of executing the sources program or the source codes Object codes are displayed on the user interface

Media " these are those things, materials or tools used for storing and delivering of information or data Media can also imply channels, links or materials that convey data or information

Learning media " learning materials that convey information to a student or from which a student can extract knowledge from Example, textbooks novels, among others

Multimedia " as applied to this project, it is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms

Contents " information and experiences that may provide value for end-user

Content form " this refers to the way information or content is been presented The different features of the multimedia forms its content forms Example audio, video, text, among others

Content value " this refers to the usefulness of information contained in media

End-user " also known as user this is an individual or an organization that make use of finished product or for whom a product is designed and developed

Hardware " this is a physical component of a computer that could be touched or felt Example visual display unit (VDU)

CAL " this stands for computer Assisted learning It is an application package that is designed to enable the user learn a particular subject through the provision of tutorial that may or may not companied by questions CAL is popularly called tutorial software CAL is very close to CAI and could be used interchangeable, but in some cases, might not mean exactly the same

CAI " this is an abbreviation of computer aided instruction It is an application package that is designed  to enable the user learn and/or get acquainted with a specific subject or an aspect of lifeCAI, in most cases, is a simulation of real life event or true appearance of the subject for which for the user is to be educated on Most CAI comes in the form of examination preparatory tutorials like TOEFL (test of English as a foreign language) and safety training tutorials like military combat training Computer game is not always regarded as a CAI application rather entertainment application software

Project " this is finite endeavor having started and completion dates undertaken to create quantifiable product It is made up of series of job to be completed individually within the time duration allocated such a project

Project completion time " those resources or inputs that are required for accomplishing a project The major project resources are human materials and financial resources

Data collection " the act of gathering information or data from different sources within the problem defined set Data collected are processed and the information used for validating the proposed product of the project

Problem defined set " the population set for which an evaluation must be made to verify the impact of the proposed product For instance,   the problem defined set for this project are the students (especially, the computer science students)