Interactive Prototypes to Foster Pedagogical Activities for Mobile Collaborative Learning Environment (MCLE)

Abstract

Deployment of new emerging technologies have attracted and motivated a great deal of attention from researchers and scientist in various disciplines to develop and design the learning management systems, virtual learning environments and conference systems with support of MCL for education and other organizations. This technological revolution of connecting large numbers of potential learners through mobile telephony creates new challenges for developing the new architectures for education and business. Some of the MCL paradigms are proposed and implemented in various fields such as university, corporate, health and military but they lack completeness. This paper introduces new server and client side interactive prototypes with support of various working components, which help the users in obtaining the contents from server to meet the pedagogical requirements. This paper also proposes and integrates the features of content-server with cache-server to provide the faster delivery of contents for MCL. Furthermore, the paper proposes and implements some features of a novel "group application" to support asynchronous and synchronous and multimodal features to facilitate the students for MCL. Finally, the paper validates the features of interactive architecture and applications. This contribution will encourage and motivate the students to pursue their education again because the students will be able to get the course contents at anytime and anywhere.

Full text

PAPER
INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES FOR MOBILE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (MCL) TO SUBSTANTIATE PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES
Interactive Prototypes for Mobile Collaborative
Learning (MCL) to Substantiate Pedagogical
Activities
http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijim.v6i1.1808
Abdul Razaque, Khaled Elleithy
University of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, USA
Abstract—Deployment of new emerging technologies have
attracted and motivated a great deal of attention from
researchers and scientist in various disciplines to develop
and design the learning management systems, virtual
learning environments and conference systems with support
of MCL for education and other organizations. This
technological revolution of connecting large numbers of
potential learners through mobile telephony creates new
challenges for developing the new architectures for
education and business. Some of the MCL paradigms are
proposed and implemented in various fields such as
university, corporate, health and military but they lack
completeness. This paper introduces new server and client
side interactive prototypes with support of various working
components, which help the users in obtaining the contents
from server to meet the pedagogical requirements. This
paper also proposes and integrates the features of content-
server with cache-server to provide the faster delivery of
contents for MCL. Furthermore, the paper proposes and
implements some features of a novel "group application" to
support asynchronous and synchronous and multimodal
features to facilitate the students for MCL. Finally, the
paper validates the features of interactive architecture and
applications. This contribution will encourage and motivate
the students to pursue their education again because the
students will be able to get the course contents at anytime
and anywhere.
Index Terms—Design; Development; Theory, Mobile
collaborative learning (MCL); mobile devices; Server side
architecture; client side protocol; group application; cache
server.
I. INTRODUCTION
Latest studies show that MCL is highly focusing
paradigm for research particularly in distance and online
education. The idea of mobile-based learning is different
from traditional classroom-based learning. The mo-
bile-based learning pedagogical method provides many
possibilities. It helps the people to bring together working
in same or different organizations for achievement of any
specific goal. MCL exhibits intellectual synergy of various
combined minds coming together to handle the problem
and stimulate the social activity of mutual understanding.
According to survey, MCL provides some limited features
and functionalities to support the knowledge-sharing [1].
Deployment of new emerging technologies and its fast
growing trend encourages the people to develop support-
ing MCL environment for real learning management sys-
tems, virtual learning environments and conference sys-
tems. These environments lack the most promising sup-
portive architectures and softwares. From other side, The
embedded emerging technologies onto mobile devices;
such as blue tooth, motion sensors, blackberry, Infra-Red,
cameras, Global positioning System (GPS) , GSM and
faster broadband connections will make the dream into
reality. Mobile devices are also more suitable to incorpor-
ate the existing services by employing web-based inter-
face. The developed applications for mobile devices
provide motion recognition, geo-location, academic pro-
file of user and history of activities [6] & [15]. All of these
rich features can provide a promising platfarm to foster
healthy MCL environment.
We believe that MCL contributes a larger pedagogical
agenda. This paradigm is being highly acknowledged and
implemented in schools, colleges, universities and differ-
ent organizations across the world. From other side; MCL
lacks the Interactive architecture and intellectual applica-
tions to substantiate the pedagogical requirements. Many
MCL theories handles some pedagogical issues explained
in [16]. However, all of these MCL theories face some
major challenging issues in open, large scale, dynamic and
heterogeneous environments. The most performance af-
fecting issues are knowledge sharing, faster delivery of
contents, request for modified contents, delivery of large
rich multimedia contents (video-on-demand), asynchron-
ous and Synchronous Collaboration, support for mul-
timodal, provision for archive updating, user friendly in-
terface, middleware support, and virtual support.
To handle these issues, The contribution proposes and
implements innovative client and server based architectur-
al prototypes to improve pedagogical activities. These
prototypes will handle almost all of the major challenging
issues and provide an access to all users in obtaining the
contents on mobile devices at anytime and anywhere.
II. RELATED WORK
In this section, we discuss the salient features of related
published work. Kwang lee & Abdul Razaque [1] have in-
troduced the idea of server based architectural prototype at
the abstract level to support MCL in education. On the
basis of usability testing and ranking discovered the fea-
tures necessary for MCL. Xiaoyong Su, et al.[14] pro-
posed the four layer framework and prototype for multi-
media mobile collaborative system. The proposed frame-
work supports user, device and session management. The
authors claim that mobile collaborative environment could
possible be made by upgrading the devices and network
technologies. The contribution is interesting and providing
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INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES FOR MOBILE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (MCL) TO SUBSTANTIATE PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES
the abstract level of concept for introducing the frame-
work for MCL. Vladimir Zanev and Rodney Clark [2]
have discussed the concept of prototype for wireless
course management system. They handle login and au-
thentication, wireless calendar,wireless syllabus, and wire-
less testing. The paper also presents contents of course and
guides the teacher to interact with students by using
HTML based interface. Lahner F. and Nosekabel H. [3]
have implemented a program to display e-learning con-
tents on mobile devices in the University of Regensburg,
Germany. Mildard Marcelo et al. [4] have designed C-note
to provide an opportunity for collaboration in the uuni-
versity of Vaxjo, Sweden. They store the notes and in-
formation in database. They use an specialized C-Pen to
scan the material of research project with support of C-
note application. In addition scanned information is re-
stored in database and the teacher can check the activities
of each member of group during collaboration.
Jorge Bardosa et al.[7] have proposed prototype for mo-
bile and ubiquitous devices in undergraduate course of ref-
erence (nicknamed GRefe). The prototype consists of user
profile that stores the information regarding learning pro-
cess. Allision Druin et al.[5] have discussed the prototype
for their ongoing participatory design project with in-
tergenerational design group to create mobile application
and integrated onto iP Phone and iPod touch platforms.
They claimed that designed application could provide the
opportunities to bring the children and grand parents to-
gether by reading and editing the books. Ch. Bouras et al.
[12] have introduced INVITE architecture and discussed
the user's requirements to meet the demand of e-learning
in collaborative virtual environment. They have also dis-
cussed the technology and standards required for design-
ing the INVITE. Mobile Learning community (MLC) in
Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois
[13] has launched the project “exploring social trust in
mobile educational environments" funded by NSF, Google
Inc and Vodafone Inc. The project has developed four ap-
plications Recorder, Announcement, Quiz and Message.
The main purpose of the project is to introduce the mobile
learning material for course "cs241" for undergraduate
students. All of these studies in MCL environment show
that neither any contribution particularly worked on archi-
tecture based design nor on supporting systems and spe-
cific applications running on mobile. They mostly develop
the courses and few contributions touch the technology
but not implemented. This paper introduces rich MCL cli-
ent-server based architecture that supports to management
systems, virtual learning environments and conference
systems within educational institutions and several organ-
izations. The paper also develops an interactive applica-
tion for MCL running on this architecture. It meets the ba-
sic requirements such as exchange for the delivery of
communication contents for group discussion, short mes-
sage service (SMS), Emails, audio, video and offer on-line
information to collaborative group. The challenging issues
motivating this contribution are: does this contribution
provide innovative and interactive opportunities for syn-
chronous and asynchronous online communications? to
what degree architecture is more effective and result ori-
ented? does architecture develop multicultural standards
for MCL? Does paper handle all the important features ne-
cessary for effective MCL? Are group application and oth-
er light weight software threats sufficient to meet pedago-
gical needs and other collaborative requirements? How the
findings are used to engineer the requirements of Students,
teachers and other administrative staff of University of
Bridgeport (UB) and other institutions? What are the so-
cio-economic impacts of the research on USA and beyond
the world? The goal of this paper is to obtain the learning
materials to meet pedagogical needs and other collaborat-
ive requirements for educational and other organizations
through mobile devices at any time and everywhere.
III. PROTOTYPE DESIGN OF MCL AT SERVER SIDE
The server side protocol for MCL is envisioned as
promising platform that substantiates latest technologies
and mobile applications to meet pedagogical requirements
and other collaborative activities within educational insti-
tutions and beyond. This integrates various functional
components to cover all necessary features for MCL from
sending SMS to large size of videos. It supports to content
generation, content fragmentation, content buffering, con-
tent modification, content integrating, content diagnosing,
content retrieving , content refinement, content visualiza-
tion and ultimately to dissemination of results. Content
server is a centeral processing unit at server side protocol
shown in figure 1 with architectural design, which is
based on content server engine (CSE). Content server con-
tinuously senses the traffic to receive the request from cli-
ent side. If new request is arrived then it is dealt with re-
quirement of user. CSE identifies the mobile users on
basis of mobile information device profile (MIDF), status
DRAWN BY
Content Management System (CMS)
File
system
Driver
HTTP
Client
Data base Driver
Client Profile
Authentication
tool
Content server Engine
Cache Server
Database Manager GUI Database Manger CLI
HTTP
Server
Management
Reporting
System
Enterprise
Resource
Planning
Revenue
Cycle
Decision
Support
System
Data
Dictionari es
Clinical
Information
systems
Data Mining Delivery of
Information
Data
Warehouse
Rep-1 Rep-2 Rep-n
Figure 1. Architectural Prototype for MCL at server side
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INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES FOR MOBILE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (MCL) TO SUBSTANTIATE PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES
of previous network condition and requested URL. Anoth-
er promising feature of server side protocol is to satisfy
the authorization and authentication process in order to
provide the access to legitimate users only. This job is
done with help of CSE to verify the status of the users. If
illegitimate user sends the request for getting the contents
for collaborative learning that request is declined. CSE is
implemented on internet information server (Web server)
that also provides the access to legitimate users. CSE
deals with three types of services normal, low priority and
high priority. If request is about normal service that is
handled with file system manager. It supports to text,
graphs and small size of videos. Requests about large size
of videos is dealt with database manager that is considered
as low priority service provider. High priority covers all
type of data services including text, graph, images and
voice. This task is performed with integration of cache
server, which sets its own hyper text transfer protocol
(HTTP) connection. Integration of cache server process
provides the faster delivery of learning material. With in-
troduction of cache server, time can be saved of backups
and log monitoring because the substantial time is spent
on these activities every day. It improves the performance
of health, military and law enforcement departments be-
cause they need high priority services to achieve their tar-
gets at anytime and anywhere.
CSE can save and get data from either database driver
or file system driver. Both database and file system drivers
forward the request to the database manager GUI and
database manager CLI. Single CSE can support to many
storage mediums.To obtain the contents faster, we propose
HTTP client and integrate with CSE. At the server side,
we also introduce the cache server, which has feature of
setting up its own hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) con-
nection. The cache server gets the request from HTTP cli-
ent and delivers the requested contents immediately; if
they are already cached on server, otherwise forwards the
client's incoming request to content management system
because cache server has direct access for getting the re-
quested contents. There is another advantage of the cache
server because it does not need backups and log monitor-
ing. Database manager CLI is functional component at
server side. It creates programming interface, documenta-
tion and module. The beauty of database manager CLI is
to provide the faster delivery of contents. From other side,
it monitors, generates, restores and manages backups. CLI
provides the limited services but supports for priority ser-
vices. It fosters interactive and background operations. We
access the database manager CLI tool by using C++, Java,
XML and other high level programming languages. To
overcome the limitation of CLI, The server side also intro-
duces database manger GUI tool that works like database
manager CLI with same but more extra features. GUI in-
volves more extra features, which are diagnosing the con-
tents, displaying information, several interactive options
and updating database software. The database manager
GUI also supports several featured mobile devices. The
most promising feature of GUI is provision of friendly
user-based interface to access the remote mobile devices
to start successful MCL process.
GUI and CLI collectively provide the access to connect
with different repositories for storing and extracting the
contents for mobile devices. Both GUI and CLI make de-
cision to which repository should be selected for obtaining
the requested contents. The repository plays a role as
bridge connecting GUI and CLI with EDW for obtaining
the requested contents. The rapid increase in consumption
of different medias cause of mixing all the contents and
resulting loss of data occurs. To control this issue; various
repositories are introduced at MSCS for each media that
handle the scalability issues and loss of data. Each reposit-
ory serves as table to obtain and store different kind of
contents. The multiple use of repositories capture and pre-
serve communication process and serve as tangible indic-
ators for improving the quality of mobile learning [11].
The repositories are supported with content management
system (CMS). The CMS provides logical storage for dif-
ferent devices. Hence we can switch from Rep1 to Repn in
single table for finding the requested contents easily for
collaboration.
IV. CLIENT SIDE PROTOTYPE FOR MCL
The Feed Demon and iOS version of net news wire
support iPhone and iPod Touch. They help mobile devices
to get the contents from sever. The latest version of net
news wire lite 4.0 was introduced to substantiate the apple
macintosh store (AMS) with limited features. The AMS
provides the digital distribution platform for Macintosh
OS [17] and [18]. Despite of some missing features, net
news wire 4.0 helps the users to obtain and share the con-
tents with other mobile users. To collaborate with other
users, the supporting software Really Simple Syndication
(RSS) 2.0 is used. The RSS creates RSS feed (online re-
sources) for members of group. The RSS feed is storage
area used for asynchronous collaboration. The handheld
devices store the contents obtained from server side onto
their respective RSS feed. The RSS aggregator is another
enhancement with integration of video aggregator. It is
highly influential feature to support several on-line
sources (RSS feed) and helping to store the contensts. The
video aggregator collects and sorts out on-line video for
RSS feed. To make successful MCL, Apple iPhone can be
used with Lite feed RSS reader. Lite feed involves several
utilities such as compressing files, cache and fast access to
obtain the feeds. Lite feed also helps the handheld devices
to view the whole article and share an information among
other users. The passage of article is shown in figure 2.
Figure 2. Received contents from server side
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INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES FOR MOBILE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (MCL) TO SUBSTANTIATE PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES
Another application is also bit-Torrent based on peer-to-
peer that supports mobile RSS 2.0. The application allows
a client to download the files automatically. The RSS 2.0
is the main source of sharing and downloading the inform-
ation for MCL. The specific RSS aggregators can resolve
the pedagogical issue because they are very helpful in
building the blog [8]. Mobile RSS provides audio and
video updating [1]. RSS reader is another supporting soft-
ware that can check the subscribed feeds of the clients. It
also builds user friendly interface. Each participant is as-
signed separate feed to store and read the information.
When any mobile device wants to collaborate with rest of
group. It obtains the contents from server and stores on its
RSS feed. It provides an opportunity to other users to use
an information for MCL. The interested user in collabora-
tion takes one more responsibility to send multicasting
message to invite the group-members to start MCL. The
multicasting message is broadcasted but based on the size
of group. The users can join and leave the group and re-
cognized with class ID. The track group membership and
route datagram are required to send multicast messages to
the members of group. The group membership manage-
ment is used to control the local delivery at at local level.
Global is used to handle the remote multicasting [9]. Inter-
net Group management protocol is used to track the loca-
tion of clients. When participants send the response with
reports they are recognized as members, taking part during
MCL. Similarly, the global is inter-domain multicast pro-
tocol that is used for multicasting the message. The beauty
of the protocol is to control the scalability and network
convergence issues. It also helps the users to download the
contents by using RSS 2.0 software from feed of inter-
ested participant who wants collaboration. All of the users
get the contents from RSS fed then start the collaboration.
The process of multicasting and storing the contents is
shown in figure 3.
Figure 3. Content storing and extracting process from client side
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INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES FOR MOBILE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (MCL) TO SUBSTANTIATE PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES
V. GROUP APPLICATION AND CASE STUDY PROTOTYPE FOR MCL
MCL is a emerging concept in education since last sev-
eral years. It allows the users to gain computer-based in-
formation through mobile devices. MCL provides various
advantages such as portability, context awareness, con-
nectivity and social interaction [6]. Mobile devices can be
more successful tool for collaboration, allowing the stu-
dents to obtain and share the information to meet the ped-
agogical objectives. From one side, mobile creates bridge
of several opportunities, and from other side, limitations
affect the deployment in MCL environment. The highly
performance affecting factors are small size of screen, mo-
bility, navigation issue, bandwidth, low resolution, and
limited memory [1] and [6]. With deployment of emerging
technologies and its best use make the task easy and ac-
cessible to all. The paper proposes and implements user
side group application with some features at an initial
state. The prototype of application is used as case study
that resolves the barriers being faced mobile users to ob-
tain the contents at anytime and anywhere. The prototype
of group application helps the students to obtain the re-
quired contents to meet the course requirements. Assume
the students want to obtain the contents of course "mobile
and wireless communication" As these devices get the
course contents from the server of UB to make MCL. The
sufficient information is stored in EDW to meet the stand-
ard of course explained in [2]. Information of courses cov-
er textbook information, course ID course name and
course description. The main focus of case study is around
the course description that comprises of course contents.
The objective is completion of course contents during the
semester to fulfill course requirements. The Course ob-
jectives are met with support of quizzes, class tests assign-
ments, discussion, research projects, labs etc. These all of
the requirements are obtained through MCL. Figure 4 sup-
ports the process of case study prototype for MCL.
Suppose Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
and its components are the contents of the first chapter of
mobile and wireless communication course. To meet the
course requirements, we want to create MCL environment
but due to limited capability of mobile devices and in-
stalled software threads cannot provide easy access to
achieve the objectives. To meet the requirements, we re-
commend to use feed demon or net news wire software
with support of (RSS) 2.0 software. Furthermore, we sug-
gest to incorporate android mobile operating system,
which consists of software stack for mobile devices. The
following recommendations will be implemented to add
new application.
1. add new application with name " group" in applica-
tion section by using Java programming and eclipse.
2. extend resource manager and activity manager and
provide extra responsibilities to control different fea-
tures of "group" application.
3. modify and extend libraries section to facilitate struc-
tured data storage.
4. enhance display Driver of Linux Kernel to support
MCL activities.
Want Course
contents with
description for
MCL
Course
Objectives
achieved
What to do for
collaboration
$
$
Enterprise
Data
warehouse
Server side
collaborator
collaborator
collaborator
Successful collaboration
Collaboration on client side
1
2
3 a
4 a
4 a
3 b
Group aggregator
5
RSS
Feed
-II
RSS
Feed
-I
RSS
Feed
-III
RSS
Feed
-IV
6
7
8
Figure 4. Process for obtaining the course contents through MCL
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INTERACTIVE PROTOTYPES FOR MOBILE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (MCL) TO SUBSTANTIATE PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES
If these recommendations are implemented in android,
new application "group" with new features will support
for obtaining the contents from server side. group applica-
tion is shown on android with other applications in figure
5.
The "group" application consists of two basic options
Control and Delivery. The control option performs several
functions including add new contact, edit contact, delete
contact, existing collaborative group (C-G) and make new
C-G. Delivery Option consists of two sub basic functions
"Receive" and "send". When user wants to obtain the con-
tents from server side, delivery option is used and contents
are saved by using the store option. The store option con-
trols and handles all type of data. Store involves file, audio
and video. The store has download option. The participat-
ing users use this option to download the data and stored
onto RSS 2.O for collaboration. Each section of store op-
tion manages the several files, audio and video. When
contents are obtained from server that are saved onto
store. The uploaded option of application is used to upload
the contents to RSS Feed. The upload option helps the
users to put any type of contents in RSS feed. The con-
tents to be stored are used by member of the group for
MCL. The requested user makes group call after storing
the contents in RSS feed. The user also informs the collab-
orative group to join for MCL by making group call as
shown in figure 6.
When participants of group receive an invitation mes-
sage for collaboration, they start to download the contents
from RSS feed of requested user. When group finish the
process of downloading the required contents from RSS
feed of inviting user. Finally they start to follow the pro-
cess for MCL given in figure 7.
If members need file for MCL, they open to read an in-
formation of the contents. If an information is not suffi-
cient for clarification of the topic, they can play the video
of related information obtained in figure 8.
Figure 5. Group application with other applications
Figure 6. Making group call to all participants
Figure 7. Sharing of contents for Mobile Collaborative Learning
(MCL)
Figure 8. Sharing of Video for Mobile Collaborative Learning (MCL)
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The “group” application provides utility to manage the
contents by using separate options for each media . The
file option is used to get text-based contents otherwise au-
dio and video options are used. When all of the members
get sound knowledge of the topic, subsequently initiate the
process of collaboration by using existing collaborative
group (Existing CG) option. The process is supported with
TCAP, ISUP, Q.931, H.323 and other underlying proto-
cols. These protocols collectively support real-time audio
and video communication [1] & [10].
VI. ANALYSIS & VALIDATION OF ARCHITECTURE AND
APPLICATIONS
The most important and critical task is validation of ap-
plication and architecture. The paper uses two methodolo-
gies applied in validity testing supported with five likert
formula. The methodology involves laboratory and field
testing. The laboratory testing is conducted for architec-
ture and application including light weight software
threads. The field testing covers application and few light
weight software threads. The benefits of laboratory testing
involve human interaction and heuristic evaluation to ac-
complish the task. The paper does not depend on single
testing procedure in laboratory. It comprises of four test-
ing phases including unit testing, integration testing, per-
formance analysis requirement or beta testing and user ac-
ceptance testing. The unit testing is initiated after finishing
each task to check the functional performance of each
component or feature. If any bug is detected that is re-
moved at the initial stage. The unit testing is more helpful
for introducing cost-effective and high-quality product ex-
plained in [19] & [21]. Integration testing (IT) makes the
task easier because it combines all integrated aggregate
into one unit to identify the problems to be occurred. IT
reduces number of possible errors to make successful ana-
lysis [20]. Requirements analysis is applied when estab-
lishing the goals for conducting the validation. It com-
bines the features of usability attributes and applies nine
generic usability attributes explained in [22] & [23]. IT
helps to find out the reflection and attitude of users when
using mobile application for accomplishment of task. The
users try to understand the presented contents for improv-
ing their performance. The quality of menus, navigation
design of application, accuracy and completeness is iden-
tified to achieve certain goals. User acceptance testing
(UAT) is recognition of party's work done by other party.
It is final testing process to screen out any issues if users
identify. The laboratory testing method is handy to focus
on comparing multiple interface designs and mechanisms
for input data of mobile devices. UAT makes easier to de-
ploy video device to capture the emotions and reactions of
participants when using mobile application. The dynamic
mobile features are hard to simulate in laboratory and they
need real environment to identify the valid findings about
the performance of features explained tin the studies [24]
$ [25]. This statement motivates to measure the perform-
ance of group application and including few light software
threads outside the laboratory. The field testing faces three
basic problems reported in (Palen & Salzman, 2002). To
control these issues, we introduce the scope of mobile fea-
tures prior to conducting field testing. The scope high-
lights movement and position of testers and environment
scenario. It is more convenient to deploy effective meth-
ods for collection of data in field. We use real mobile
devices in both testing methodologies, which help the test-
ers to collect realistic facts and figure in static, dynamic
and heterogeneous environments. The basic data collec-
tion methods w involve the questionnaire, interview,
verbal protocol and regular meetings to get feedback from
participants and testers to improve the quality of Interact-
ive architecture and applications. In this section, we dis-
cuss the procedure of testing for group application based
on heuristics and questionnaires. We apply both testing
methodologies with 08 participants to be conducted at the
University of Bridgeport. The participants analyze and
evaluate the some basic features of server side Interactive
protocol and group application. With this testing proced-
ure, the users transfer files between laptops and the mo-
biles. The testing procedure invites the participants be-
longing to different background. Some are familiar and
belonging to mobile and wireless communication field
and fewer possess less expertise in this field but know
how to use mobile devices to make MCL. The group lead-
er who is much familiar with this field records the per-
formance for the features of Interactive architecture and
applications on the basis of activities performed during the
testing. The performance analysis requirement or beta test-
ing method also involves three steps. First, we introduce
the testing procedure from design phase to conducting the
test. Second, make all the related operations of architec-
ture and applications and finally, we give the question-
naire to all the participants based on 5-level Likert meth-
od, so that testers give the feedback and answers after
completing the appropriate tasks shown in figure 9.
When questionnaire procedure is finished, we arrange
the meeting in which all the participants come and share
their experiences and give their impression regarding the
test. We also get suggestions regarding the redesign and
modification of architecture and application. When parti-
cipants leave the room, we compile the results and arrange
in form of table for better understanding shown in table I.
Figure 9. Testing procedure for some features of group application
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TABLE I.
SHOWING THE COMMENTS OF PARTICIPANTS AFTER ANALYSIS AND VALIDATION
Post Usability Testing of fields Comments of participants
Should be easy to use Strong Positive=08; Positive=00;Neutral=00; Negative=00;Strong Negative=00
Should be User friendly interface Strong Positive=08;Positive=00;Neutral=00;Negative=00;Strong Negative=00
To be flexible to collect and extract the data. Strong Positive=06;Positive=01;Neutral=01;Negative=00;Strong Negative=00
To provide text, graphs, images, audio and video services to
meet the requirements of related course of study Strong Positive=06;Positive=01;Neutral=01;Negative=00;Strong Negative=00
To support multimodal MCL Strong Positive=05;Positive=01;Neutral=02;Negative=00;Strong Negative=00
The Students should have alternative choices for selecting any
topic to discuss. Strong Positive=03;Positive=02;Neutral=02;Negative=01;Strong Negative=00
To provide the facility to contact and invite the members for
collaboration Strong Positive=02;Positive=03;Neutral=03;Negative=00;Strong Negative=00
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The main objectives of introducing the architec-
ture-based prototypes are to obtain the learning materials
on handheld devices particularly on mobile devices. The
deployment of these prototypes in educational institutions
will foster the pedagogical activities. The students can get
course-contents at anytime and anywhere. The paper in-
troduces the novel architecture for server to support MCL
in education. The design and development process of
server-based architecture provides faster delivery of con-
tents to users. The content server is also optimized by in-
tegrating it with cache server at server side. This integra-
tion saves time of users to collaborate quickly. The client-
based architectural prototype gives complete directions to
researchers and market oriented persons how to make the
mobile device efficient to obtain the contents from server
and store onto RSS 2.0 for MCL. The paper also targets to
implement some basic features of the new group applica-
tion and recommends some valuable suggestions in an-
droid operating system of mobile devices. Furthermore,
the paper discusses the development process of group ap-
plication including the prototype based case study for the
University of Bridgeport to meet the course requirements.
Finally, the paper validates the features of interactive ar-
chitecture and applications to prove the claim. In future,
we will use marking and ranking method to find out the
basic user requirements. In light of basic user require-
ments, group application will be extended and also valid-
ated by using usability testing method and heuristic evalu-
ation.
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iJIM – Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2012
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PAPER
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AUTHORS
Mr. Abdul Razaque is Phd candidate of computer sci-
ence and Engineering department in University of Bridge-
port. His current research interests include the design and
development of learning environment to support the learn-
ing about heterogamous domain, collaborative discovery
learning and the development of mobile applications to
support mobile collaborative learning (MCL), The conges-
tion mechanism of transmission of control protocol in-
cluding various existing variants, delivery of multimedia
applications. He has published over 20 research contribu-
tions in refereed conferences, international journals and
books. He has also presented his work more than 10 coun-
tries. During the last two years he has been working as a
program committee member in IEEE, IET, ICCAIE,
ICOS, ISIEA and Mosharka International conference. Ab-
dul Razaque is member of the IEEE, ACM and Springer
Abdul Razaque served as Assistant Professor at federal
Directorate of Education, Islamabad. He completed his
Bachelor and Master degree in computer science from
university of Sindh in 2002. He obtained another Master
degree with specialization of multimedia and communica-
tion (MC) from Mohammed Ali Jinnah University,
Pakistan in 2008. Abdul Razaque has been directly in-
volved in design and development of mobile applications
to support learning environments to meet pedagogical
needs of schools, colleges, universities and various organ-
izations. E-mail: arazaque@bridgeport.edu.
Dr. Khaled Elleithy is the Associate Dean for Graduate
Studies in the School of Engineering at the University of
Bridgeport. His research interests are in the areas of mo-
bile wireless communications, network security and form-
al approaches for design and verification. And Mobile col-
laborative learning. He has published more than one hun-
dred twenty research papers in international journals and
conferences in his areas of expertise. Dr. Elleithy is the co-
chair of International Joint Conferences on Computer, In-
formation, and Systems Sciences, and Engineering
(CISSE).CISSE is the first Engineering/Computing and
Systems Research E-Conference in the world to be com-
pletely conducted online in real-time via the internet and
was successfully running for four years. Dr. Elleithy is the
editor or co-editor of 10 books published by Springer for
advances on Innovations and Advanced Techniques in
Systems, Computing Sciences and Software. Dr. Elleithy
received the B.Sc. degree in computer science and auto-
matic control from Alexandria University in 1983, the MS
Degree in computer networks from the same university in
1986, and the MS and Ph.D. degrees in computer science
from The Center for Advanced Computer Studies in the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1988 and 1990, re-
spectively. He received the award of "Distinguished Pro-
fessor of the Year", University of Bridgeport, during the
academic year 2006-2007. e-mail: elleithy@bridge-
port.edu.
This article is an extended version of a paper presented at the Interna-
tional Conference ICL2011, held in September 2011, in Piešťany, Slov-
akia.
24
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