MIST/C: OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE FOR HYBRID CLASSROOM AND ONLINE TEACHING

摘要

Educational research indicates that the two prevalentrnapproaches to distance education, synchronous andrnasynchronous, exhibit synergy if combined. Our researchrnaddresses how to create the most effective, open sourcern(and therefore robust and inexpensive) software to enablerneducators to exploit that synergy. The Moodle learningrnmanagement system provides a high-quality asynchronousrnonline learning environment, but until recently has lackedrna matching synchronous component. This paperrnintroduces synchronous open source software for fillingrnthat gap: a synchronous online teaching/conferencingrnsystem called MIST/C. The Moodle-MIST/C combinationrnhas demonstrated its effectiveness in online delivery ofrnour Master of Science in Computer Science Department.rnMIST/C was created as an enhancement to the NetworkrnEducationWare system, on which we have reported inrnprevious IASTED conferences. It was developed as openrnsource software to work seamlessly with Moodle on allrnmajor platforms and also to be easy to install and operate.rnIt also is tailored to support simulteaching: teaching arngroup of students in the hybrid mode delivering tornclassroom and online at the same time, which conservesrnteaching resources. This paper describes the design andrnimplementation of MIST/C, including latest advancedrnfeatures, and our experience using it to deliver our degreernprogram.