Abstract:
Academic institutions in Sri Lanka are seeking quality improvements for their
activities, and therefore subjected to change their processes with the aid of
Information Technology. This has led the universities to deploy e-Learning
systems, and hence the competitive advantage over others. Different universities
follow different academic administrative strategies. This has caused individualized
adoption of e-Learning systems, and hence many incompatibilities exist nationally,
as well as globally. However, the analysis on the learning content shows that many
things exist in common. This implies that if the learning management can be
separated from the content management, content management framework can be
made generalized and distributed. At the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering at university of Moratuwa, we ventured on a blended e-Learning
project to implement a generalized e-Learning framework. The system has
undergone periodic evaluations. The system's architecture has a separate LMS
(Learning Management System) and a separate CMS (Content Management
System). LMS provides the necessary platform to manage the personal profiles,
resources and other means of administrative activities considering the university
specific requirements. It carries out activities such as student registration, student
enrolments to subjects, management of resources such as tutors, classrooms and
laboratories, etc. CMS is responsible for managing the learning content and the
knowledge sharing in a generalized manner. It provides the means of managing
content such as lecture notes, video and audio resources, application tools,
assignments, forums, discussions, progress monitoring, etc.
