Generic E-Learning Data Structure and Web Teaching

Abstract

Today many e-learning systems achieve high standards in delivering online courses via Web technologies and database system. However, these systems are constrained by rigid data model or schema that was pre-defined in the database to provide data storage structure for contents in e-learning applications. In the development of database driven e-learning system, the schema is crucial in analysing the data requirement for the system. However, many disadvantages are the results of system being developed on top of a static data model structure. The most concern issue includes the inflexibility of the data model that leads to unalterable contents data structure and its layout format, because the attributes in the data model are expected to be hard coded during the development in most cases. To avoid such inflexibility and improve the performance in the e-learning system, this paper introduces an approach of generic data model scheme in the database structure and interface-design toolkits, which allow the users to make modifications on the data structure and the system has the ability to adapt these changes. It achieves the adaptability, extensibility and reusability of database structure in the e-learning system.