Oracle 9iAS Portal as a platform for Geographic Information Science distance and flexible learning at the University of the South Pacific

摘要

Providing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) courses over the Distance and Flexible Learning (DFL) in the University of the South Pacific has been until now an area where little concentration has focussed. The USP is an international University serving 12 countries where the majority of students are studying through the DFL mode. Many large universities and educational centres are already effectively using different DFL eLearning solutions as a type of eBusiness. The GIS Unit and the Computing Science Department at the USP have developed a prototype for GIS education for the DFL mode, based on GeoMedia Web Map Server and Oracle 9iAS Portal, which provides a comprehensive way to store and deliver structured and unstructured information from a single point of access on the web. The purpose of this article is to analyse the specifics of the n-tier architecture of spatial data management within the Web-Portals as an interface for the GIS eLearning. This paper outlines features of development and the content of a GIS Web Portal for distance education in a constrained net environment, and accompanying issues for integration of GIS tools within geodatabase client-server architectures of corporative Web solutions.