Ubiquitous Learning on Pocket SCORM.

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Ubiquitous Learning on Pocket SCORM
Hsuan-Pu Chang1, Wen-Chih Chang1, Yun-Long Sie1, Nigel H. Lin1,
Chun-Hong Huang1, Timothy K. Shih1 and Qun Jin2
1 Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering
Tamkang University, Taiwan, Republic of China
sul@mail.mine.tku.edu.tw
2 Department of Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences
Waseda University, Tokorozawa-shi, Saitama 359-1192, Japan
jin@waseda.jp
Abstract. With advanced technologies, computer devices have become smaller
and powerful. As a result, many people enjoy ubiquitous learning using mobile
devices such as Pocket PCs. Pocket PCs are easy to carry and use as a distance
learning platform. In this paper, we focus on the issues of transferring the
current PC based Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) to
Pocket PC based. We will also introduce the Pocket SCORM Run-Time
Environment (RTE) which has been developed in our lab. Pocket SCORM
architecture is able to operate, even when the mobile device is off-line. It will
keep the students' learning record. When it is on line, the records will then be
sent back to Learning Management System (LMS). With memory limitation,
we provides course caching algorithm to exchange the course content on the
Pocket SCORM.
Keywords: Pocket PC, PDA, SCORM, Distance Education, Ubiquitous
Learning
1 Introduction
Because of the advantage in size, Pocket PC is easy to be carried on hand or in the
pocket. This advantage makes it a suitable platform for distance education because E-
Learners can keep studying the course materials while they are away from their desk.
Without the limitations of time and space, E-Learners can read their learning
materials while they are walking, taking bus, and whenever they have leisure time to
turn on their Pocket PCs. This new learning style provides some extra learning time
for E-Learners who live in this rushing world.
Although Pocket PC devices have been improved in both computing power and
memory storage, they are still with lots of limitation compared with laptop or desktop
computers. The following points are some differences between the Pocket PC devices
and laptop or desktop computers.
Connection Mechanism
Normally, E-Learners will be on-line when they are using laptop or desktop
computers. Since E-Learners would stay at the same location longer when using their
laptop or desktop computers than using a Pocket PC devices. As a result, they will be

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2 Hsuan-Pu Chang1, Wen-Chih Chang1, Yun-Long Sie1, Nigel H. Lin1,
Chun-Hong Huang1, Timothy K. Shih1 and Qun Jin2
kept connected with the LMS, which is running on the server, all the time. This is
different from Pocket PC devices because these devices are designed to be portable.
Courseware Import and Export
As we mentioned previously, Pocket PC devices sometimes could be disconnected
from the network; however, we hope E-Learners are able to learn even when the
network is not existed. In order to enable this functionality, we need to seek a way to
allow the courseware to be temporary stored on the hand carried devices.
Learning Records Buffering
For a distance education standard such as SCORM, it requires the LMS to be able to
keep tracking on learners' learning records so these records could be used to
determine learners' progress or maybe transfer to other LMS where learner continue
his education. As a result, it is important for a SCORM compatible platform to be
able to store learners' learning records.
In this paper, we proposed a platform which focuses on the pocket devices. There
is also a LMS which will be SCORM compliant to support the Pocket SCORM
platform and be the major data store. The paper organization is listed as following. In
Section 2, we introduce some related works of SCORM and systems on the pocket
device. Section 3 shows the architecture of our Pocket SCORM architecture. In
Section 4, we introduce the Pocket SCORM RTE which has been developed in our
lab. In Section 5, we introduce the course caching algorithm in Pocket SCORM.
Finally the conclusion and the future works are discussed in Section 6.
2 Related Works
Distance education enables E-Learners to learn without the restrictions of both time
and space. There are many web-based courseware have been developed to allow
learners to browse course content via a browser. SCORM (Sharable Content Object
Reference Model) is a standard which is proposed by ADL (Advanced Distributed
Learning) [1]. SCORM is aiming at the standardization of computer based teaching
components. There are some papers related to SCORM have been published. Some
advantages such as portability of learning content, the standardized communication
interface between the LMS and WBTs, and supporting the reusability of learning
object came alone with this new proposed standard. However, there are some
problems as well such as the market value of SCOs, the process of producing WBTs
on the basis of different SCO providers, the maintenance of SCOs and WBTs, and the
quality of WBTs based on SCOs of different providers. A review discussed these
issues can be found in [2]. Another paper demonstrated the Implementation of
Content Repository Management System is referenced in [3]. In “Using SOAP
and .NET web service to build SCORM RTE and LMS” [4], the XML Web Service
based LMS and RTE was introduced. There was another system developed for
automating the generation of SCORM-Based multimedia product training manuals
was introduced in [5].

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Ubiquitous Learning on Pocket SCORM 3
Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) have become new learning tools for distance
education in recent years. Portability of the PDAs was welcomed by students, and
advantageous was advantageous, limitations such as the small screen size, navigation
difficulties, and slow and error-prone methods for entering text, made it difficult to
read and interact with document on the PDA [6]. Some students’ experiences for
reading course materials by PDAs were experimented. There are also some
applications developed for educational purposes. TekPAC (Technical Electronic
Knowledge Personal Assistant Capsule) was introduced in [7]. TekPAC was
developed for providing access to readily available electronic information, allowing
the user to perform tasks at locations with all schematics, photos, videos and BKMs
readily available, and integrating key interventions to raise performance of target
audience. PDAs have also been adopted in medical field as a tool for education. There
were some PDA Projects at Virginia Commonwealth University being introduced in
[8].
3 Pocket SCORM Architecture
In proposed architecture, we pointed out two types of connection for a Pocket PC to
connect with LMS Server. One type is Pocket PC is connected to the server through
wired or wireless network to the internet. The other is Pocket PC connects to the
server via PC to the internet while Pocket PC is synchronizing with the PC.
In order to make courseware reusable, a standard representation of contents and
structures must be enforced. The Content Aggregation Model (CAM) serves this
purpose. CAM can be discussed in three parts: the Content Model, the Metadata, and
the Content Packaging.
There are three major modules within the Pocket SCORM Architecture. In the
following three sub-sections, we will show the details of each of them.
3.1 Pocket SCORM Run-Time Environment
There are six major components which are included in Pocket SCORM Run-Time
Environment. All these components work together to form the whole Pocket SCORM
Run-Time Environment. They are listed as below:
Communication Agent
The Communication Agent is used when the pocket devices try to communicate with
the SCORM LMS Server. When E-Learners try to download the SCORM based
courseware from the LMS Server, it will receive the packed courseware and pass it to
Data UnPacking Agent. If there are some learning records need to be sent back to the
LMS server, the Communication Agent will connect to the LMS Server and send the
packed learning records back to the server. We considered using Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP) [9] to be our transmission protocol to make our services of
server side more extendable.

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4 Hsuan-Pu Chang1, Wen-Chih Chang1, Yun-Long Sie1, Nigel H. Lin1,
Chun-Hong Huang1, Timothy K. Shih1 and Qun Jin2
Data Packing Agent
We implemented the Data Packing Agent to reduce network load. This agent will
pack the data before sending it to Communication Agent.
Data UnPacking Agent
Package Interchange File (PIF) is the exchange file format. Therefore, we need Data
UnPacking Agent to unpack the PIF file.
Learning Agent
The Learning Agent will keep tracking on the learner’s learning records when the
course is started. The learner might be off-line, the Learning Agent stores those
learning records in the SCORM PDA Database temporarily. After it is on-line, those
temporary stored learning records will be sent back to the Server.
SCORM PDA Reader
Due to the small screen restriction, normal web-based course content is not suitable
for learners. They might need to use a stylus to control the scrollbars inside the Pocket
Browser. It is inconvenient for the learners to use. To overcome this drawback, we
designed “Reflow” function in the SCORM PDA Reader. “Reflow” function will
adjust the content to make it fit in the width of the display width on our reader.
SCORM PDA Database
SCORM PDA Database has the capability of storing the temporary learners’ learning
records and the downloaded courseware.
3.2 PC Dock
If the Pocket PC without the ability to be on-line, it will require a PC Dock to be able
to connect to the LMS server. There is a Synchronization Agent inside the PC Dock.
The Synchronization Agent will perform the data transmission job between
Communication Agent on the Pocket SCORM RTE and XML Web Service on the
SCORM LMS Server.
3.3 SCORM LMS Server
There are two major components involved in SCORM LMS Server. One is the
SCORM Data Repository, and the other is Pocket SCORM Service API. SCORM
LMS Server provides distance education courseware which follows SCORM Data
Model definition. The learners’ information is also saved in the SCORM LMS Server.
When a learner connects to the LMS Server, he or she needs to first logon the system
before he or she can access any course materials. The usage of these two major
components is stated as below:

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Ubiquitous Learning on Pocket SCORM 5
SCORM Data Repository
The SCORM Data Repository stores all the course materials which follow SCORM
Data Object Model. In the paper, we mainly focused on the Pocket PC devices.
Therefore, we only care about how SCORM Data Repository interacts with our
Pocket SCORM Service API. Nevertheless, this data repository should also support
any SCORM based API. Furthermore, learners’ learning records are also stored in this
data repository. These SCORM based learning records should also be able to interact
by using either Pocket SCORM Service API or any SCORM based API.
Pocket SCORM Service API
Ideally, Pocket SCORM Service APIs should be same as normal SCORM based
APIs. We hope defined Pocket SCORM Service APIs can be widely applied by other
applications. We tried to build Pocket SCORM Server APIs by adopting XML Web
Service [10] technology. XML Web Service takes SOAP as its transmission protocol.
One of the advantages of using XML Web Service as our APIs is the accessibility.
Since SOAP is loosely coupled protocol by using XML wrapped envelope to invoke
APIs, this vantage makes XML Service APIs can be accessed by any platform which
follows SOAP protocol to acquire the service. As a result, we hope to implement our
Pocket SCORM Service APIs as XML Web Services.
4 Pocket SCORM RTE Implementation
Based on the proposed architecture, we have been working on the implementation of
the whole architecture. Up to present, we have completed some portion of the whole
Pocket SCORM Architecture. There were some components which comprises the
Pocket SCORM Run-Time Environment. Some user interfaces and functions will be
introduced in this section.
In fig. 4.1, there are two user interfaces. On the left hand side, it shows the UI
when student try to logon to Pocket SCORM RTE. Because we need to track on
learners’ learning records, the learner needs to provide his identity before studying the
course materials. There is also an important issue need to be taken care. We need to
make sure is the same user who is studying the courseware. In order to make sure
learner’s identity, the logon UI will be pop-up each time when Pocket PC has been
turned off and turned back on again. On the right hand side of fig. 4.1, it shows a list
of imsmanifest files which represent the each different course structure.