The object-oriented database application and the system architecture of a national learning objects repository for Cyprus

Philippos Pouyioutas and Dmitri Apraksin
Intercollege
Cyprus
Maria Poveda
University of Cyprus
Cyprus


This paper presents the object-oriented database application and the system architecture of a National Learning Objects Repository for Cyprus (NLORC). The NLORC will provide a web-based application allowing indexing, uploading and downloading of e-learning resources and creation, querying and modification of Learning Objects (LOs).

The main contribution of this paper is the novel database application that underpins the NLORC. The database application caters for the creation, storage and manipulation of LOs and has been designed based on existing LO Metadata Standards and a survey which was carried out amongst academicians in Cyprus. The application has been developed using an object-oriented database system and thus enjoys the advantages emanating from the utilization of object-oriented and temporal database features.

The NLORC implements a typical three-tier architecture. The core part of the NLORC is a Database tier, accessed and managed by means of the Application Server. The front-end of the system is built on the WEB servers. Another prominent part of the system is the NLORC storage. The NLORC storage allows storing a wide range of LO implementations covering the most popular ones. For this reason, the system also includes the file server, Apache WEB server, as well as other database servers. Thus, the NLORC storage can be used for storing various types of interactive and non-interactive LOs.

The paper is organized as follows. In the Introduction, we briefly address the research work carried out in the area of LOs and LO repositories and introduce our research work in the area [1, 2]. In Section 1 we present our model for LOs. In Section 2 we briefly address the evolution of database systems to object-oriented database systems and explain the advantages of object-oriented database applications over conventional (relational) database applications. In Section 3 we present the object-oriented database structures of the database application that underpins the development of the NLORC. We also address the advantages of utilizing object-orientation in our application. In Section 4 we present the system architecture of the NLORC. Finally, in Conclusions, we summarize the work presented herein and address our current and future work for the development of the NLORC.

  1. Philippos Pouyioutas and Maria Poveda (2005), 'Designing a Learning Objects Repository for Cyprus -- The Views of Higher Education Faculty' Advances in Web-Based Learning, 4th International Conference on Web-Based Learning, Hong Kong, pp. 111 - 121, Springer Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3583, 2006
  2. Philippos Pouyioutas and Maria Poveda (2005) 'A Model for a National Learning Objects Repository for Cyprus' IASTED International Conference on Databases and Applications, pp. 111-115, Austria, February.