Creation of an integrated environment to supply e-learning platforms with Office Automation features

Abstract

Over the last years great efforts have been made within the University environment to implement e-learning technologies in the standard educational practice. These learning technologies distribute online educational multimedia contents through technological platforms. Even though specific e-learning tools for technical disciplines were already available on the Internet, in our opinion more general tools, typically involving calculations, plots or diagrams, through the use of spreadsheets or graphical applications, were still needed to provide a more flexible and multi-purpose integrated environment. Therefore, we developed an integrated system to supply e-learning platforms with almost the same functionalities offered by standalone Office Automation applications. Modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment (MOODLE) and OpenOffice.org were selected to deal with any problem originating from the software and to smooth over the users' learning curve. Furthermore, MOODLE is a modular platform and offers an extensive application programming interface for coding in a simple and effective manner. The implementation of the work required the employment of Java and Asynchronous JavaScript and Extensible Markup Language technologies and included the creation of a Java Applet to be embedded in the web pages of the new MOODLE modules. Students could thus be offered a single working environment for handling “traditional” material and performing practical activities. The students' feedback on this new integrated system was very positive and proved the effectiveness of our work.

Keywords:

• e-learning
• Office Automation
• MOODLE
• OpenOffice
• integration

Acknowledgements

The authors greatly acknowledge Matteo Baldoni for his accurate revision of the paper and for his valuable suggestions. Furthermore, we are deeply grateful to Sergio Rabellino for his important technical support in the development of this work and to Barbara Demo for her encouragement in elaborating this research.

Notes on contributors

Emilio Palumbo is a research fellow at Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. His research interests are focused on software development especially for applications in the petroleum engineering field. He was also deeply involved in the project devoted to building an e-learning infrastructure for graduate students.

Francesca Verga is associate professor at Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. She is the Coordinator of the Petroleum Engineering Master program and is leader of a research team, which has developed several projects, also supported by oil companies, mainly on petrophysical characterization of reservoir rocks; traditional and unconventional well testing; characterization and numerical simulation of fractured reservoirs; numerical simulation of smart wells and smart fields; underground gas storage; assisted history matching techniques; and improved oil recovery. She is the reference person for the Center for Petroleum Studies, sponsored by eni, to promote strategic innovation and research for the petroleum industry. She authored numerous scientific publications and deposited three patents. She is also technical editor for many international journals.