Distance Learning System

Establishing an international business school in enterpreneurship in Croatia, a country with a transitional economy, was a grand idea. There is no independent school or university college of this nature anywhere in the world. Virtually all of the business schools are built around the corporate paradigm. The few that are not, focus mainly upon a corporate view of entrepreneurship. In general, business schools also purvey a culture of working for someone else. Yet the independent, owner-managed firm is the norm for the organisation of industrial and commercial services throughout the world. Graduate Program "Enterpreneurship" at University of Osijek's School of Economics was aimed at just that: a university business scool in enterpreneurship, focused on SMEs.

Several hundreds of students are attending the program each year. They are geographically located in various regions of Croatia and abroad; attending class sessions on a regular basis may be difficult or impossible for them. Furthermore, many of the teachers and lecturers are coming from the USA, UK, etc. Consistent, structured and accessible course materials are not always available, or may be availabe only in a printed form in a limited number of copies. Consistent and standardized workflow processes and standards related to lecture modules, exams, requirements, etc. are were not established. The school has its own custom-build portal that holds some of the learning materials, and has a license for a major commercial eLearning solution. However, teachers generally do not use the existing solutions as they do not fit their needs.

After evaluating all the requirements, Mono Software decided to develop a browser-based eLearning solution based on the MonoX portal framework. MonoX has several unique features that allowed us to build a solution that is completely suited to the client's needs:

• interactive user interface compatible with any recent Web browser, allowing for intuitive, drag-and-drop interaction with the portal elements. MonoX uses Ajax-based user interface elements and all the latest "Web 2.0" technologies to allow users to be as productive as possible.
• full support for the ASP.NET Web parts framework: the Web Parts framework was one of the most conspicuous and the most powerful new features in Microsoft's ASP.NET 2.0. Basically, it is a set of controls and services that specifically target the growing demand for Web portal creation, including support for personalization, membership, communication and other infrastructural tasks. MonoX is built on top of the standard Web part API, so there is virtually no learning curve involved.
• scalable and robust architecture: MonoX offers a scalable architecture that can satisfy the requirements of both small workgroups and large enterprises. Unlimited number of portals can be served from a single portal database.
• standardized plug-and-play modules and an open API: new modules can be developed and plugged-in via standard Web part API.
• high performance and flexible data layer: MonoX utilizes LLBLGen, a powerful object-relational engine that generates highly optimized, robust and scalable database-related code.
• unprecedented ease of use: non-technical users can administer most of the aspects of the working portal. MonoX employs standard WYSIWYG editors, file manager mimics the look and feel of the standard Windows explorer, etc. It fully supports offline editing tools based on MetaWeblog API (Microsoft Windows LiveWriter).

ASP.NET forums integrated within MonoX portal

Being strongly related to Microsoft development tools and technologies, Mono Software based the application on Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 was the designated development environment for both client and the server portion of the app. Microsoft SQL Server 2000 was used as the RDBMS at the server side.

Course evaluation module

Mono Software development team is devoted to the strongly typed, n-tiered, RAD programming philosophy. We are using LLBLGen (Low Level Business Layer object relational mapper & code GENerator) object-relational mapper by Solutions Design; without it, the development of such large scale project would be much more difficult. With its help, it's easy to generate the complete business tier based on a database architecture and transform even the most complicated kind of queries to the strongly typed C# code, which provides huge savings during both the initial development phase and the later bug correction/new features/maintenance phases. LLBLGen outperformed all the other similar tools we tested and remained a strong ground for all Mono Software projects to the present day. More recently we have started to use LINQ, a set of extensions to the .NET Framework that encompass language-integrated query, set, and transform operations.

Our initial development efforts were dedicated to delivering a bare functional prototype ASAP. In line of the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology, new releases were issued frequently, emphasizing intensive communication with the client. Although many of the required modules were already present in the MonoX core (content management, community tools, user management, etc.), a lot of time was spent on design and development of the custom eLearning modules.

Web exam admin module

The finished system contains more than 30 different portals, all managed from a single administrator interface, using a single codebase and database. A dedicated subportal is developed for every course at the program. Every subportal has standardized user interface and enforces universal workflow and organization schemes, allowing for personalization and modification when necessary. Students attending respective courses have access to all course materials and community tools for communicating with their peers and teachers. System is fully protected using a scalable security hierarchy.

File manager module

• no need for excessive traveling and physical access to classrooms
• future development of IT/communication architecture will allow for intensive use of voice/video conferencing
• fast and easy access to course materials
• standardized organization of information and resources, resulting in a higher quality of available materials
• reusable content modules may be re-deployed in other courses/institutions without significant effort
• minimal effort is invested in system administration and ongoing maintenance
• "pluggable" architecture enables easy implementation of new system functionality
• no need for advanced knowledge of HTML and related Web technologies for students and teachers
• trackable and measurable information on student's activities and learning habits
• developing hands-on experience with advanced IT technology
• brand recognition for the Graduate Program as the leader in cutting-edge technologies

Document categories / support for different file formats (PPT presentation shown here)