Study On The Applications Of Open Course Based On Cloud Computing Environments

Since Mr. Charles Vest, President of MIT, declared official launch of MIT Open Course Ware (OCW) in April2001in Time magazine, many world-renowned universities have joined the program in succession and OCW has flared up. In recent years, OCW has unfolded a new momentum. The rise of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has enabled OCW to overcome the shortcomings of its traditional mode. Interactions and communications have become important elements in OCW. Meanwhile, as the cloud computing technology matures, its features including flexibility, scalability, sharing, low cost and serviceability have rendered new technical supports for the application of OCW.However, there are still some problems in OCW, such as inadequate interactions between teachers and students, lack of collaboration among learners, deficiency of learning effect tracking methods and lack of flexibility of traditional platform, which affect the in-depth application of OCW and cause the idleness and waste of many high-quality educational resources.In response to the situation, the thesis will, based on the practice, put forward viewpoints addressing the abovementioned problems as well as conduct platform designs and case studies.Starting from the status quo of OCW application, this thesis points out the deficiency in the current OCW and designs a learner-oriented Cloud Computing Based Open Course Learning System. The thesis focuses on the design, implementation, case application and evaluation of the system, aiming to allow learners to leverage the OCW system to effectively supplement formal learning through "fragmented" and "mobile" learning, thus empowering happy and liberal learning, which is conducive to the development of lifelong education in the entire society. In summary, the following aspects of work have been done: From the perspective of OCW practice and application, the thesis analyzes the deficiencies in current application of OCW, builds a SECTIONS Model of Cloud Computing Based Open Course Application, and designs and realizes the Cloud Computing Based Massive Real-time Interactive Learning System based on the SECTIONS Model. The main work of the thesis is as follows:1. The thesis analyzes the features of cloud computing based OCW, looking into the OCW application mode in terms of real-time interaction between teachers andstudents, tracking evaluation of learning effect, heterogeneous terminal access and other perspectives, building a SECTIONS Model of Cloud Computing Based OCW, and exploring the application of OCW from eight dimensions including learning support services (S), learning effect evaluation (E), knowledge sharing (C), information technology (T), interaction (I), open access (0), networked learning community (N) and sustainability (S).2. The thesis designs a Cloud Computing Based Massive Real-time Interactive Learning Platform based on the SECTIONS Model. The platform includes four OCW modules (OCW management, real-time interactive teaching management, learning effect evaluation management, and learning schedule management) and three management modules for OCW system (customer service management, learning community management, and operation and maintenance management), using key technologies such as virtualization, live migration, real-time interaction, intelligent video and multimedia retrieval and image recognition to ensure the realization of various functions.3. In the light of the actual needs of University A, the thesis develops and realizes the prototype of Cloud Computing Based OCW Learning Platform, providing OCW teaching to university students, the teaching content including both the OCW developed by the university on its own and the existing OCW resources in the Internet. Finally, the thesis conducts a preliminary evaluation on the application of the platform by means of case studies, questionnaires and statistics of actual usage.The study shows that the application of Cloud Computing Based OCW based on SECTIONS can support learners of large-scale interactive learning on demand online with various terminals at any time and any place; also can track the learning effect and technically guarantee the demand for "credit". The platform facilitates the "mobile" and "fragmented" learning for learners and can even change the proportion of teaching and learning in traditional teaching, promote the improvement on self-learning capabilities of learners and truly realize the goal of learner-centric application.The study in the thesis is of profound practical significance and application value, which transforms OCW application from the simple resource supply to curriculum and teaching, giving reference to the researches on the change of cloud computing based learning and teaching as well as the reform of teaching platform and management mechanism.