Synchronization and Caching Solution for Cost-Effective E-Learning in Resource and Bandwidth Constrained Environments

Abstract

Electronic learning (e-learning) content delivery and accessibility have received significant research attention over years in order to ensure reliability, availability and cost-effectiveness through Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).The evolvement of mobile computing devices especially smartphones bring prospects in overcoming the inherent limitations of the Internet when accessing web contents.  Among the potential opportunity revealed includes the ability to work offline. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the existing online and offline e-learning systems in order to explore the uniqueness, technical problems and opportunities in this field. In the same vein, this study proposed synchronization and caching approach for cost-effective e-learning content delivery. The proposed approach synchronizes contents from the original server to local database in mobile computing devices in order to deliver contents to learners in a reliable, cost-effective and timely manner. Finally, comparing existing web-based learning system and the proposed approach, the analyzed results provide empirical evidence that, the proposed approach is significant for bandwidth usage cost saving and hence cost-effectiveness due to ability of working offline. Therefore, synchronization and caching approach cut down several limitations in existing e-learning systems including:  reduction of cost of bandwidth usage; improving system performance by cutting down the servers’ workload and internet usage overheads; cutting down costs of purchasing hardware and increasing motivation in learning activities by allowing learners to access learning contents anywhere and anytime.

Keywords: synchronization and caching, e-learning, cost-effectiveness, content delivery, offline.