CLOUD COMPUTING BASED E-LEARNING SYSTEM

1. Introduction
In the recent years, learning has expanded beyond the walls of the classroom, the
proliferation of affordable devices and internet connectivity has led to the phenomenon in
which information technology is being used to transform education. This transformation
adopts the concept of e-learning as an integral part of their education system in many
Institutions. For designing e-learning systems, many hardware and software resources are
required. Cloud computing technology is one such and has managed to gain attraction due to
the effective usage of resources, scalability and on-demand service. Designing of Cloud
Computing provides a low cost solution to the educational institutes. The objective of this
paper are gives an overview of the cloud computing concepts, its benefits and then discusses
about how cloud computing as an e-learning solution by building an e-learning cloud and
then analyzes the benefits of using this approach.
2. E- Learning
E-Learning is the market for corporate interactive distance learning, has boomed along
with the growth in the Internet and corporate intranets . Some people use the term to refer to
packaged content pieces and others to technical infrastructures. Some think only of webbased self-study while others realize eLearning can encompass real-time learning and
collaboration. Almost all agree that eLearning is of strategic importance.
E-Learning refers to the use of internet or wireless technologies to deliver a broad array
of training solutions that enhance knowledge and performance. E-Learners access the
learning from computers via the internet or an intranet, or through a hand held device like a
palm pilot.
A new Paradigm Out-of-classroom and in-classroom educational experiences Elearning is the computer and with the aid of network enabled transfer of skills and
knowledge. E-learning applications and processes offer Web-based learning, computer-based
learning, virtual education prospects and digital collaboration to their e-users. There are two
primary models of Web-based instruction: synchronous (instructor-facilitated) and
asynchronous (self-directed, self-paced). Instruction can be delivered by a combination of
static methods (learning portals, hyperlinked pages, screen cam tutorials, streaming
audio/video, and live Web broadcasts) and interactive methods (threaded discussions, chats,
and desk-top video conferencing).
3. History
In the early 1960s, Stanford University psychology Professors Patrick Suppes and
Richard C. Atkinson experimented with using computers to teach math and reading to young
children in elementary schools in East Palo Alto, California. In 1963, Bernard Luskin
installed the first computer in a community college for instruction, working with Stanford and
others, developed computer assisted instruction. Luskin completed his landmark UCLA
dissertation working with the Rand Corporation in analyzing obstacles to computer assisted
instruction in 1970.
Early e-learning systems, based on Computer-Based Learning/Training often attempted
to replicate autocratic teaching styles whereby the role of the e-learning system was assumed
to be for transferring knowledge, as opposed to systems developed later based on Computer
Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), which encouraged the shared development of
knowledge. As early as 1993, William D. Graziadei described an online computer-delivered
lecture, tutorial and assessment project using electronic mail. By 1994, the first online high

school had been founded.

In 1997 Graziadei, W.D., et al., published an article entitled "Building Asynchronous
and Synchronous Teaching-Learning Environments: Exploring a Course/Classroom
Management System Solution". They described a process at the State University of New York
(SUNY) of evaluating products and developing an overall strategy for technology-based
course development and management in teaching-learning. The product(s) had to be easy to
use and maintain, portable, replicable, scalable, and immediately affordable, and they had to
have a high probability of success with long-term cost-effectiveness. Today many
technologies can be, and are, used in e-learning, from blogs to collaborative software,
ePortfolios, and virtual classrooms. Most eLearning situations use combinations of these
techniques.
4. Knowledge on E-Learning
Education is acknowledged as one of the pillars of the social development. In the
modern era, the global economy has been shifting towards Knowledge Based Economy
where knowledge is created, acquired, disseminated and utilized more efficiently and
effectively by educational institutes, enterprises, individuals and communities for greater
socio-economic development and global competitiveness.
The conventional education methods have some important phases such as content
delivery, assessment of student achievement and feedback on the assessment [12]. The elearning system tries to use the same phases as well as it adjusts the learning process
according to the learner so that the learner is able to learn anytime and anywhere at his/her
own pace. But today, most of the conventional education methods are not suitable for social
progress and are not being able to cater to the changing needs of the learner.
There are various names that are used to express the term E-Learning in a technology
world such as Computer based training (CBT), Internet based training (IBT), and lesson to
the e-learner. Elearning comes through a network enabled computer and transfers the
knowledge from the internet sources to end users machine.
Usually the E-Learning works with the help of software applications and usually the
information is transferred with the help of internet, audio/video files, satellite TV, media
disks. These materials are having the contents like text, image, animation, audio/video to
deliver the learning materials to E-Learning users. Many universities and institutions are
implementing the e-learning for their distance education programmers and also used it to
enhance the ability of other educational degree programmers because of its effectiveness at a
lower cost.
Web based training (WBT) term express the way of E-Learning teaches them with the
advancement of computer technologies day by day, work becomes simplified with the help of
preprogrammed software applications. E-Learning is one of the most famous technologies
discovered to make the traditional way of education learning easier with the help of software
applications and virtual learning environment. Cloud computing, mobile learning,
communication technology, etc. are of help to bring the E-Learning to next level of IT world.
a) E-Learning Cloud Computing Model:
Clearly, the traditional e-learning network is built and maintained by schools or
enterprises, and their applications are also developed by themselves. Therefore, the costs of
equipment investment, development and maintenance are afforded by schools or enterprises
themselves, which would take a lot of expenditure. If moving e-learning system going out of
schools or enterprises, entrusting its construction, maintenance, development and
management to vendors, opening it up to multiple users through the Internet and letting them
use on-demand and payment is based on the amount of used servers, it can not only reduce
charges for schools or enterprises, but for suppliers it can also achieve economies of scale.

This business model of e-learning system is called e-learning cloud model on cloud
computing.

Fig : 1 E-Learning Systems

b) E-Learning Cloud Computing Business Model:
E-learning cloud computing business model is shown in Figure 2.

Fig : 2 Business Model for E-Learning Cloud Computing

In e-learning cloud computing business model, cloud provider is responsible for
building and maintaining E-Learning cloud, providing technical support to e-learning cloud.
Cloud users paid to cloud provider for services from e-learning cloud, services accessed ondemand. In Figure 1, during the cycle, servers support users, funds support provider,
technologies support e-learning cloud, what is a business cycle is a virtuous cycle.
5. Development an E-Learning System
To develop an e-learning system should detect a group of developers from deferent
specialist, Any e-learning system need an analyzing as a first step to start using it and make it
more useful to the users (trainer, lecturer, students, etc.), and of course designing the
system model to simplify the dealing with this model and make it more flexible to use and
deliver the information or can easily reaching the data as a second step , the next step
development start after collecting all data and experience to put it realistic and apply it in our
system ,implementation is our aim to create developing system, the last step is evaluate
system work and controlling the advantage and disadvantage, register all the positive and

negative result.
Adapting existing models to match specific needs is wiser than proceeding without any
plan. However, flexibility is needed to select and adapt a model to a given situation. Elearning projects different in complexity and size. The process described below is
comprehensive it covers all the options that can be included in a complex learning project.
However, some of the steps can be skipped or simplified according to projects objectives and
requirements, such as budget, expertise or organizational constraints.
1. Analysis
An analysis should be conducted at the start of any development effort to determine
whether Training is required to fill a gap in professional knowledge and skills. It used for the
identification of general, high-level course goals and determines the course content. Task
analysis identifies the job tasks that learners should learn or improve the knowledge and skills
that need to be developed or reinforced. This type of analysis is mainly used in courses
designed to build specific job-related skills (also called perform courses). Topic analysis is
carried out to identify and classify the course content. This is typical of those courses that are
primarily designed to provide information (also called inform courses).
2. Designing
The design stage includes the following activities: Putting a set of learning objectives
need to achieve the general, high-level course objective, identifying the order in which the
objectives should be achieved (sequencing), and selecting instructional, media, evaluation
and delivery strategies. The result of the designing stage is Blueprint which is used as a
reference to develop the course. The blueprint illustrates the curriculum structure (e.g. its
organization in courses, units, lessons, activities); the learning objectives associated with each
unit; and the delivery methods and formats (e.g. interactive self paced materials, synchronous
and/or asynchronous collaborative activities) to deliver each unit.
3. Development
The e-learning content is actually produced in this step. The content can vary greatly,
depending on the available resources. For example, e-learning content may consist of only
simpler materials (i.e. those with little or no interactivity or multimedia, such as structured
PDF documents) which can be combined with other materials (e.g. audio or video files),
assignments and tests. In that situation, storyboard development and the development of
media and electronic interactions would not be conducted. The development of multimedia
interactive content is comprised of three main steps:
Content development: writing or collecting all the required knowledge and
information.
Storyboard development: integrating instructional methods (all the pedagogical
elements needed to support the learning process) and media elements. This is done by
developing the storyboard, a document that describes all the components of the final
interactive products, including images, text, interactions, assessment tests.
Courseware development: developing media and interactive components, producing
the course in different formats for CD-ROM and Web delivery and integrating the
content elements into a learning platform that learners can access.
4. Implementation
In this step, the course content is delivered to the learners. The curricula is installed on
a server and made accessible for the learners. In facilitated and instructor-led courses, this
stage also includes managing and facilitating learners activities.
5. Evaluation
An e-learning project can be evaluated for specific evaluation purposes.

6. Virtual and Personal Learning Environments

The reaction of education systems and institutions to the rise of social networking has been at
best bewilderment, at worst downright hostility, a refusal to engage in these issues risks
school becoming increasingly irrelevant to the everyday lives of many young people and
particularly irrelevant to the ways in which they communicate and share knowledge.
a. Social Networks
Social network sites can be construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system
and articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and view and traverse
their list of connections and those made by others within the system.
b. Professional Networks
Professional Network generally refers to a professional network service, a virtual
community that it is focused on professional interactions instead of social interactions.
Special-formed learning networks for life-long learners. A learning network is a group of
persons who create, share, support and study learning resources (units of learning) in a
specific knowledge domain.
7. Using Cloud Computing for E-learning Systems
E-learning cloud is the cloud computing technology in the field of e-learning, which is
a future E-learning infrastructure, including all hardware and software computing resources
to engage in e-learning.
E-learning systems provide processes of delivering the learning contents to learners
who have different backgrounds, interests, and locations away from a classroom in order to
maximize the effectiveness of learning. Usually, the classical e-learning system is based on
client/server architecture thus they lack of the scalability, flexibility and interoperability. It
makes the learning resources cannot share, and the system improvement is not easily. The
cloud computing architecture in the e-learning system that the architecture separate into three
layers includes infrastructure, platform and application.
This architecture needs to design components in order to transfer the learning resources
to the cloud platform. Infrastructure layer, the learning resources from the traditional system
are transferred to the cloud database instead of the usual DBMS. Platform layer, a new elearning system that consists of the CMS, AMS, and other service components were
developed. These components were developed to be the intermediary between cloud database
and the applications.
Finally, application layer, CAT web application and WBI application were developed
for interacting with the student's client .The results shown that all applications co-operated
with the other components suitably. Applying the cloud computing makes the classical elearning more scalability, flexibility, and interoperability. Moreover, cloud computing induces
the way that e-learning can be share and distribute the learning resources to any kind of
devices and platforms.
Cloud computing provides a low cost solution to academic institutions for their
researchers, faculty and students. This setup provides an additional benefit because all these
browser-based applications can also be accessed through mobile devices in addition to being
available to a variety of laptop and desk top computers, provided internet access is available.
Integration of e-learning with cloud computing, not only helps distributing information and
aids learning and teaching registry, but can also resolve the high cost of development,
increase performance of management and monitor security.
Cloud based e-learning is the sub division of cloud computing on educational field for
e-learning systems. It is the future for e-learning technology and its infrastructure. Cloud
based e-learning has all the provisions like hardware and software resources to enhance the
traditional e-learning infrastructure. Once the educational materials for e-learning systems are

virtualized in cloud servers these materials are available for use to students and other
educational businesses in the form of rent base from cloud vendors. Cloud based e-learning
architecture is explained in the following figure:

Fig : 3 Architecture of E-Learning Cloud Computing

Cloud based e-learning architecture is mainly divided into five layers called hardware
resource layer, software resource layer, resource management layer, server layer and business
application layer.
1) Hardware resource layer: This is bottom most layer in the cloud service middleware
where it handles the essential computing things gs like physical memory and CPU for the
total system. This layer is most important for the total infrastructure of the system. With the
help of virtualization, physical servers, network and storage are grouped and called it as
upper software platform. To offer the uninterruptable power to the cloud middleware services
for the cloud based e-learning systems, physical host pool is expanded dynamically and
memory is scalable at any time to add additional memory.
2) Software resource layer: This layer is created with the help of operating systems and
middleware. With the help of middleware technology, many software solutions combine to
offer the grouped interface for the software developers. So, software developers can create
many applications for elearning system and able to embed those in cloud, which helps the
cloud users to compute those applications through cloud.
3) Resource management layer: This layer plays an important role on get loose
coupling of software and hardware resources. With the help of virtualization and scheduling
idea of cloud computing, it brings the uninterrupted on-demand software distribution for
different hardware resources.
4) Service layer: This layer is divided into three levels namely IAAS, PAAS, and
SAAS. These service layers help to cloud customers to use the various forms of cloud
resources for their products like software resource, hardware resource, and infrastructure
resource.
5) Business application layer: This layer differs from all other layers in cloud based elearning architecture, because this layer acts as important business logic of e-learning, and
frames the expansion of group of components for e-learning. Business application layer
mainly consists of content creation, content delivery, education platform, teaching evaluation
and education management.
8. Advantages of Cloud based E-learning Solutions
A major advantage of cloud-based technology for the e-learning industry is the
reduction in operating costs. Many hardware and software resources are generally needed to
deploy e-learning, which comes at a cost that some companies and educational providers

cannot afford. Cloud technology offers a solution through allowing clients to rent required
processing capacity from data centers.
Many education institutions do not have the resources and infrastructure needed to run
top e-learning solution. This is why Blackboard and Moodle, the biggest players in the field
of e-learning software, have now versions of the base applications that are cloud oriented. Elearning is widely used today on different educational levels: continuous education, company
trainings, academic courses, etc. There are various e-learning solutions from open source to
commercial.
Cloud computing is evolving quickly into a race for computing power, communications
and transactions. As it merges further with social and identity services, it even challenges
the idea of national boundaries and resource management. The future will be driven by the
relationship between transactions. The architecture of the enterprise will evolve beyond
standards-based B2B data exchange and will instead develop real-time APIs to use with its
partners; to the extent these interfaces are real-time, the enterprise itself will need to become
real-time to keep up with location-driven and personalized relationships.
For others, its simply that they dont have access to the required infrastructure to run highquality e-learning. In response, key players like Blackboard and Moodle now have cloudbased versions of their applications. some of the benefits of cloud-based technology:
It allows users the same experience on any internet connected device with minimal
software requirements.
It removes the requirement to download and install specific software requirements to
use cloud-based technology.
It transfers costs for licensing and upgrading software and hardware to the cloud data
center rather that at the local level.
It reduces the need for crash recovery since data is stored in the cloud; however, the
trust is shifted to the cloud service provider.
It provides opportunity for e-learning to keep pace with technology trends.
9. Cloud Computing Benefits for E-learning Solutions
There are some great positives that cloud-based technology brings to the table, but
there are some considerations that need highlighting. Factors determining the success of
cloud-based technology for e-learning include the quality of service offered by providers and
security issues. With data and software located on remote servers, a major concern is that the
system could crash or become inaccessible without warning and control to rectify the
situation. Other factors to consider:
Internet connection speed becomes critical in the overall performance of e-learning
products. This could create access issues for learners living remotely in areas with
unstable internet connections.
Cost is at the mercy of data center subscriptions, which could rise, and overtime,
become more expensive than buying the hardware and software.
Data security becomes a potential risk, as well as the need to house backups locally.
It seems cloud-based technology is likely to play a major role in the way many
companies choose to approach e-learning development and deployment. For now, the
advantages and disadvantages need to be weighed and considered when making your
choice. As with any emerging technology, for long-term true indicators of success, we
will have to watch this space.
10. Conclusion

According to cloud-based E-Learning is new generation of traditional E-Learning. However,

E-Learning cloud infrastructure, Cloud computing Traditional fully supports the ability to
dynamically allocate computing and storage resources required for E-Learning is Cloudy.
This system explains how the transformation of educational content and integrate different
methods for learning and teaching in the context of supply. Finally we present the benefits of
cloud computing in e-learning and maintenance training curriculum. However, we must stress
that these are just initial steps towards an open line for research and exploitation of ELearning and
Cloud Computing platforms.
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