Contributions to the integration of external tools in e-learning systems

Abstract

Current Learning Management Systems are playing an important role in providing access to educational contents all around the world. These systems typically maintain the control of learning activities by providing a centralized environment to organize and provide information, along with a set of tools to facilitate the tasks of teachers and students. Nevertheless these LMSs are too generic, as they fail to adapt to specific scenarios. These limitations have been the starting point of our research. The work described in this PhD Thesis tries to address these issues by the definition of a middleware to support the integration of new tools. This middleware is devoted to take advantage of the SOA paradigm while at the same supporting the concept of hard integration. At different with current integration solutions that only enable a "soft" integration of external tools, our architecture allows a harder level of integration that allows a LMS to extend its functionality, and do it in a controlled way. In the final term our solution improves the usability of current LMSs, and brings more opportunities to provide students with a better and more applied education.