A Low Cost Course Information Syndication System

Abstract

This study presents a cost effective, reliable, and convenient mobile web-based system to facilitate the dissemination of course information to students, to support interaction that goes beyond the classroom. The system employed the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology and was developed using Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology. The design of the system was modeled using Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams, while its implementation was done using Java Micro Edition (JME) and "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor" (PHP). A simulation technique was used to evaluate the proposed system performance by comparing the approach used in its design to one adopted in a similar study, using response time and bandwidth consumption as metrics. The results obtained revealed that the performance of the proposed syndication system was better. Similarly, an experiment to investigate the students' perception of the system was conducted, with students' responses revealing a tremendous success of this project. (Contains 1 table and 11 figures.)