Towards a framework for determining a platform for teaching web application development in tertiary institutions in South Africa

摘要

This study develops and applies a conceptual framework that can be used to evaluate dynamic Web platforms in order to determine a platform for teaching Web application development in tertiary institutions. The framework is specific, yet comprehensive and supported with theory and empirical experimental programming results.We first identify the concepts of Web application development and the constraints to be satisfied by a platform for teaching identified concepts. Then we establish various criteria that will enhance the teaching of the concepts. We also establish qualities and experiment that will ensure that a selected platform is easy to use, fast, portable and affordable. A spreadsheet tool is developed to apply the framework and enable users to customize the framework by varying the criteria's weights. The developed framework is tested by the evaluation of the suitability of Java Servlets, JSP, ASP and PHP with PHP emerging as a suitable platform.