Collaborative cloud: a new model for e-learning

Abstract

The number of learners using e-learning has been increasing at an enormous rate in the past decade due to easy access to higher educational resources via the Internet. On the other hand, the number of teachers in most universities is growing slowly. As a result, instructional problems have emerged due to the lack of sufficient support to learners in the e-learning process. Collaborative learning has been suggested as a solution to this problem. Current collaborative learning puts a heavy emphasis on teamwork and group discussion, but provides inadequate support for individual learners during the whole learning process. This paper presents a new model of collaborative e-learning using cloud computing technology to solve this problem. A prototype system has been developed with empirical evaluations to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords:

• collaborative learning
• e-learning
• cloud computing
• knowledge grid

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by a UGC GRF Grant (No. 717708) from the Hong Kong SAR Government, and a Seeding Fund for Basic Research (No. 201011159210) and a Seed Fund for Applied Research (No. 201002160030) from The University of Hong Kong. The authors also thank Professor Jonathan Michael Spector for his valuable support to this project.