As the course materials can be stored in XML (extensible markup language) format, which offers a tree-like or hierarchical structure, the prevailing relationships inside the course materials are of parent-to-child, which facilitates easier addition or removal of the course-material nodes or documents. Through techniques like SMIL (synchronized multimedia integration language), multimedia data not only can be played on the Internet, but also run in a synchronized manner.
Published in Chapter:
Towards a Personalized E-Learning System
Elvis Wai Chung Leung (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong) and Qing Li (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 11
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-198-8.ch314
Abstract
To cope with the increasing trend of learning demand and limited resources, most universities are taking advantage of Web-based technology for their distance education or e-learning (Montelpare & Williams, 2000). One of the reasons is due to the significant price drop of personal computers in recent decades; the Internet and multimedia have penetrated into most households. Moreover, most students prefer to learn from an interactive environment through a self-paced style. Under the Web-based learning model, students can learn anytime, anywhere because they are not required to go to school on schedule (Appelt, 1997). Meanwhile, universities also enjoy the economic benefit due to the large student base that can share the development cost of course materials and other operational expenses. Gradually, more and more universities follow this similar way to provide online education.