A basic web-based distance education model

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Computer Engineering, Izmir, 2005Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 147)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxv, 201 leavesDuring the recent years, the rapid growth of the Web and multimedia technologies urged a shift of Computer-Based Educational Technology towards the Web. In the leading universities of the developed countries, studies on Web-Based Education have started and in an increasing manner are going strong. In the last few years, the leading universities of Turkey are also greatly interested in Web-Based Education and have started their re-structuring accordingly.The goal of this study is to design a basic model to be utilized by a university aiming to offer web-based distance education. In achieving this; by the use of system approach, a model comprising of three subsystems, namely system analysis, system design and evaluation&control, working in coordination with each other, has been tried to be proposed. There may be only one missing point of this study, that is; since preparing a lesson or program according to this model was not foreseen in this thesis, the effectiveness evaluations suggested in the evaluation&control subsystem could not be realized. It is recommended to realize such an evaluation in a further study to make it possible to reveal the effectiveness of web-based education by preparing a lesson or program according to this model.On the other hand, a survey has been conducted in Turkey in some of the universities either offering web-based education or are interested in studies in this field.The aim of this survey is to analyze from system design point of view the studies carried out in our universities on this matter and to get a picture of the existing situation.The directed questions aiming this were prepared by taking into consideration of the three stages of system design subsystem, i.e. administrative design, educational design, and technological design. It is intended for the result of this survey to shed light to the new-coming institutions in this field. As a matter of fact, each stage of this subsystem is a survey item itself and should be researched one by one in other studies.Furthermore, for individuals interested in distance education and web-based distance education and for people newly involved in this matter, this thesis is intended to be a reference material and to serve this purpose the sections are prepared containing the basic information accordingly. Nevertheless, since most of the information regarding system design are prepared without taking into consideration the disabled people, the relevant information are not complete. In another study, the offering of the web-based education to the disabled people, especially for deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired, and blind students, has to be investigated.Finally, in this thesis the proposed model for the Web-Based Distance Education, as being a basic and conceptual model, has a flexible structure; i.e., suitable for all the institutions and establishments intending to offer the web-based education.What is important here, is to exploit the potential sources within the institution that will display the required systematic approach

Internet performance modeling: the state of the art at the turn of the century

Seemingly overnight, the Internet has gone from an academic experiment to a worldwide information matrix. Along the way, computer scientists have come to realize that understanding the performance of the Internet is a remarkably challenging and subtle problem. This challenge is all the more important because of the increasingly significant role the Internet has come to play in society. To take stock of the field of Internet performance modeling, the authors organized a workshop at Schloß Dagstuhl. This paper summarizes the results of discussions, both plenary and in small groups, that took place during the four-day workshop. It identifies successes, points to areas where more work is needed, and poses “Grand Challenges” for the performance evaluation community with respect to the Internet

Designing Open and Distance Learning for Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: A toolkit for educators and planners

Everyone remembers a good teacher. Good teachers are the key to educational expansion and improvement. In many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent need to expand the number of primary and secondary teachers. In all African countries, there is an equally important need to improve the quality of teaching. To achieve this, it is clear that new approaches to teacher education are essential. Existing institutions of teacher education will continue to play an important role, but, alone, they will not meet the goals of Education for All (EFA) by 2015. It is fortunate that, just as the twin needs to improve the quantity and quality of teachers become imperative, so new forms of education and training are becoming available. The world is witnessing a revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs), which can offer training and support of a type and at a cost hitherto impossible to consider, and thus, must be fully explored given the scale and urgency of demand. In doing so, however, it will be necessary to build on existing and well-tested strategies, including the best models of open and distance learning. This toolkit is the third in a series of recent publications by the Africa Region Human Development Department of the World Bank to share knowledge and experience on how distance education and ICTs can support education in Sub-Saharan Africa. It emphasizes the rigorous process by which new forms of distance-education programs for teacher education can be planned and implemented. The best models of established programs are considered along with the potential for incorporating, as the means become available, new modes of communication. Most forms of teacher education, particularly those concerned with qualification upgrading and ongoing professional development, will have to be based in schools. The authors demonstrate how school-based programs, appropriately resourced and supported, have the potential not only to raise significantly the number and quality of teachers, but also to improve classroom practice and school organization, generally. The guidance and advice, which is drawn from many years of experience in design and implementation, and embraces a range of case studies from across the region, will be of considerable value to those preparing new policies and programs of teacher education and to those seeking to improve existing programs

Journal of Telecommunications in Higher Education

In This Issue: 6 It\u27s a Disaster! 10 SLCC: Lessons learned 18 Working with WANs: Minimize Risks and Prepare for Disaster 25 Wireless to the Rescue 39 Anticipate, Predict, Forecast, Plan, and Relax 47 Postscript to a Flood: Grand Forks One Year Late

Identification of metrics used by decision makers to determine the efficacy of wireless communication systems in higher education

This research described the wireless network technologies that are available for use in higher education, determined the categories of metrics used to evaluate wireless network efficacy, and yielded a self-assessment instrument for guiding small college administrators considering wireless local area network systems.;The features and benefits of contemporary wireless systems in higher education were identified through a review of the professional journals, government publications, and standards industry documentation. The literature identified three categories of metrics beneficial for the evaluation of efficacy of wireless campus local area networks: cost, speed, and reliability. After identification of these categories of metrics, a modified Delphi technique was administered to ten wireless network experts in higher education. The expert group was made up of seven higher education wireless decision makers and three wireless industry professionals.;The wireless experts responded to Instrument One which identified 27 metrics in the three categories of metrics. The experts generated 19 essential metrics: four in the category of cost, seven in the category of speed, and eight in the category of reliability. Eight supplemental metrics were also identified in Instrument One: four in the category of cost, two in the category of speed, and two in the category of reliability.;Instrument Two generated 27 questions that could guide wireless decision makers in higher education. These metrics offer a timeless guide to wireless system planning on small college campuses. The self-assessment instrument will assist in gathering information specific to the small college environment, and in gathering current specifications for wireless network systems. The analysis of information gained from the use of this tool will help wireless campus networks to operate as an integrated part of teaching and learning

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): a Web-based collaborative learning system

Using the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) to support teaching or learning has become a trend in modern higher education. However, most distance-learning or virtual-learning sites are still limited to the dissemination of teaching materials. The strengths of the Internet and WWW have not been maximized nor have their functions (e.g. supporting autonomous, exploratory, interactive and collaborative learning) been fully utilized. Hong Kong University (HKU) has developed a virtual learning system, called the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), to prove that such kind of learning is possible with Internet and WWW technologies.published_or_final_versio

Optical Packet Switching Contention Resolution Based On A Hybrid Wavelength Conversion-Fiber Delay Line Scheme

Due to the convergence of computer communication and telecommunication technology, data traffic exceeds the telephony traffic. Thus, existing connection oriented and circuit switched network will need to be upgraded toward optical packet switched network. Optical packet switching has characteristics like high speed, data rate/data format transparency and configurable. Wavelength Division Multiplexing is the technology of combining a number of wavelengths in a single fiber. It is a tremendous trend to harness larger bandwidth for enormous delivery. WDM optical devices for multiplexing and switching in simple configuration are now available at a reasonable cost. It is a very appealing solution for development of optical packet switching. The issue of contention arises when two or more packets contend for the same output port in a switch with the same wavelength, which results to packet loss. The packet loss probability is addressed as the most inevitable and significant measurable performance parameter with QoS provisioning that is dominated by wavelength contention in optical packet switches. In electronic domain packet switched network, the contention is resolved by store and forward technique using the available electronic random access memory (RAM). Due to the immaturity of optical memory storage technology, there is no available ready-to-use optical random access memory. In order to overcome this bottleneck, several approaches have been adopted to resolve the contention problem from three domains: time, space and wavelength as stated: fiber delay line (time), deflection routing (space) and wavelength conversion (wavelength). Consequently, contention resolution in wavelength domain has attracted considerable interest among the optical communications community instead of implementing optical buffering and deflection routing that have been studied previously. This thesis proposes a bufferless, single stage, non-blocking fully connected optical packet switch for synchronous optical packet switching network, followed by a prioritized scheduling algorithm in association with hybrid contention resolution schemes. This iterative prioritized scheduling comprises of a set of preemptive selective policies for contention resolution. It is a hybrid technique that integrates wavelength conversion with feedback mechanism realized by fiber delay lines (FDL). By means of simulation, the proposed scheme has been investigated and compared with the conventional baseline scheme. A sensitive description of the satisfied packet loss probability and average packet delay as a function of main design parameters such as switch size, number of wavelengths, traffic load, degree of conversion and number of fiber delay lines have been carried out with significant improvement.Simulation results proved that the proposed scheme is an efficient approach in resolving packet contention with less complexity in execution. Relatively, number of wavelength, traffic load and degree of conversion has significant impact to packet loss ratio. The implementation of fiber delay lines results on average packet delay. Simulation results demonstrated that the switch size mildly affect the performance parameter. Respectively, packet loss ratio below 10-10 is obtained via simulation by the means of wavelength conversion without conventional buffering delay. The packet loss ratio is further reduced with the method as aforementioned with the insertion of fiber delay lines where PLR below 10-13 is achieved, which is much lower than the benchmark value. Furthermore, the obtained simulation results show that by classifying packet priority, the proposed scheduling scheme and architecture are able to offer differentiated class of service

Modeling a Multi-Agent System for Retrieving Information from Distributed Sources

This paper presents a multi-agent system called ISAME and designed for intelligent information retrieval from heterogeneous distributed sources. ISAME constitutes a virtual library that supplies a set of software agents with a simplified access to a set of dynamic information sources available under electronic formats, as well as services for facilitating and optimizing information retrieval. The system also uses TCP/IP communication protocols, and proposes a series of garbage-collection mechanisms to avoid the preservation and propagation of information among agents, or messages that become inaccessible or outdated as well as the use of the resources that become undesirable. The originality of this system rests on the fact that it simplifies the information retrieval from distributed heterogeneous sources by making these sources transparent to the user