The Research On Online Study Tracing System In Distance Education

Lifelong learning is the trend of current education development. Modern distance education is the basis of lifelong learning system. The Distant Education System (DES) supported by computers plays an important role in distance leaning. It builds a platform based on computer networks for teachers and students. Today, the Web-based DES has become the main pattern of distance learning.In distant education environment, students are physically separated from instructors by distance or time and arrange their study by themselves. To assess students' online study is almost unachievable, because most of the Web-based DESes are unable to monitor and feedback online study.Confronted with this weakness, this paper proposes a solution to monitor and feedback students' online study. It implements the online study tracing system based on IBM Lotus LearningSpace of Distance Education College of East China Normal University. The system firstly collects real-time data of students' online study behaviors from the Web Service of IBM Lotus Learning Space, and then it presents students' online study and curriculum in the form of chart by statistical analysis of data. Next, by comparing the result of statistical analysis with the value designed in the system in advance, it gives a warning to some students and takes online exam measure to certain students. Finally, this paper designs a questionnaire to probe into the feasibility of the system.This system provides a media to monitor and feedback students' online study. It is good for the students to know about his study behaviors and his ranking in the class. It is also good for the teachers to revise the syllabus and content of teaching. About 62.2% of the students think that the system is helpful to facilitate their online study.In addition, the system can not only be applied to IBM Lotus LearningSpace of East China Normal University Distance Education College, but can also be applied to other teaching platforms (If they offer the interface of Web Service likes IBM Lotus LearningSpace). So it has a good prospect of application.