A Web oriented framework for distributed e-learning

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to propose a Web services oriented framework for distributed e-learning systems aimed at providing a flexible integration model in which all the learning components and applications are well defined, effectively discovered and loosely connected. Web services provide an essential deploy environment to realize dynamic e-learning/e-business systems by facilitating application-to-application interaction. Using the proposed framework, learning service providers will be able to publish their learning objects or services universally and learning service requesters can retrieve those services anywhere, any time with any device (wired or wireless) through common communication protocols. The key values of interoperability and accessibility in the proposed architecture enhance the future distributed e-learning systems to communicate more efficiently and share data more easily. A proof of concept of the proposed system is designed and implemented in a J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) combined with J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) environment, using JAX Pack (Java for XML Pack) for building essential Web services and kSOAP package for parsing SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) messages on lightweight platforms. The implementation is a successful demonstration that learning services can be easily accessed through standard Web services interface. A cross-platform service invocation (C# to Java, Windows to Linux) is successfully accomplished in this implementation.