WebELS: An Open Source Integrated e-Learning/e-Communication Platform for Postgraduate Education and Corporate Cyber Meetings

摘要

WebELS provides an open source integrated e-learning/e-communication platform to support the need of globalizing postgraduate education as well as a tool for flexible corporate cyber meetings. WebELS focuses on on-demand self-learning, Internet-based distance lecture, and multi-location cyber meetings with easy-to-use content authoring features and synchronized online slide presentation board. Course content is done by combining various file formats, such as text, images, audio, video and MS PowerPoint slides using a content editor. On the other hand, synchronized presentation board with voice transmitted over the Internet establishes a virtual classroom lecture even when the teacher and the students are geographically far apart. Currently, voice meeting management and online annotation has been added to WebELS to augment the functionality of multi-location cyber meeting. The system can be used in any computer system (Windows/Mac OS X/Linux) that is equipped with Java Runtime Environment (JRE1.6). It has a multi-language interface and designed for narrow-bandwidth Internet environment, which made it acceptable for global situation.