EKS: Open-source Web-based Distributed Learning Tool

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Abstract:

Depending on the variety of servers in a university, servers are located in different faculties and/or departments. The computer system administrators maintain the servers separately and each server may contain different specialised software in order to serve academic staffs' and students' needs. However, it is possible that they want to use some special software in other servers. Therefore, all servers should be able to communicate to each other. Users interact with the system via web browsers using a simple computer. Using current free technologies, the EKS (Extensible Knowledge Space) tool is designed and implemented based on a distributed system as a pilot prototype of a doctoral student thesis. EKS monitors students' learning from the online teaching material, feeding back to the teacher essential information that can in turn be used to continuously upgrade or extend the knowledge space. The final system will be able to serve students' needs at the right time with the right material.