APPLE: a novel P2P based e-learning environment
IWDC'04 Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Distributed Computing
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In 1999, the HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education (SPACE) established theSPACE On-line Universal Learning (SOUL) Project. SOUL is now serving over 20,000 users. Compare to other off-the-shelf e-learning solutions, the SOUL Platform is tailored for students and teachers. The major barrier of e-learning development by teachers is the heavy reliance on technical team support. Most e-learning systems are too technically complex for teachers to use easily, necessitating lengthy communications with a technical team. Another problem is the lack of support in the quality maintenance of e-courses. There is no method or indication built into such systems for teachers to identify any structural problems with their teaching materials and the curriculum design. Furthermore, there is limited capacity for students to have a personalized study path. To address these problems, three new major features in PowerEdBuilder (the R&D component of the SOUL project) called Content Engineering (CE), SmartTutor, and e-Course eXchange (eCX) have been implemented. These three innovative breakthrough technologies set a milestone in e-learning helping bridge the gap between pedagogy and technology.