摘要
There have been numerous attempts recently to promote technology based education (Shrestha, 1997) in the poorer third world countries, but so far all these have not provided a sustainable solution as they are either centered and controlled from abroad and relying solely on foreign donors for their sustenance or they are not web-based, which make distribution problematic, and some are not affordable by most of the local population in these places. In this paper we discuss an application, the Local College Learning Management System (LoColms) , which we are developing, that is both sustainable and economical to suit the situation inthese countries. The application is a web-based system, and aims at improving the traditional form of education by empowering the local universities. Its economicability comes from the fact that it is supported by traditional communication technology, the public switching telephone network system, PSTN, which eliminates the need for packet switched or dedicated private virtual networks (PVN) usually required in similar situations. At a later stage, we shall incorporate ontology and paging tools to improve resource sharability and storage optimization in the Proxy Caches (ProCa) and LoColms servers. The system is based on the client/server paradigm and its infrastructure consists of the PSTN, ProCa, with the learning centers accessing the universities by means of point-to-point protocol (PPP) .
There have been numerous attempts recently to promote technology basededucation (Shrestha, 1997) in the poorer third world countries, but so far all these have notprovided a sustainable solution as they are either centered and controlled from abroad and relyingsolely on foreign donors for their sustenance or they are not web-based, which make distributionproblematic, and some are not affordable by most of the local population in these places. In thispaper we discuss an application, the local College learning Management System (LoColms) , which weare developing, that is both sustainable and economical to suit the situation in these countries.The application is a web-based system, and aims at improving the traditional form of education byempowering the local universities. Its economicability comes from the fact that it is supported bytraditional communication technology, the public switching telephone network system, PSTN, whicheliminates the need for packet switched or dedicated private virtual networks (PVN) usually requiredin similar situations. At a later stage, we shall incorporate ontology and paging tools to improveresource sharability and storage optimization in the Proxy Caches (ProCa) and LoColms servers. Thesystem is based on the client/server paradigm and its infrastructure consists of the PSTN, ProCa,with the learning centers accessing the universities by means of point-to-point protocol (PPP).
