| With the rapid development of computer and network technologies, the traditionalteaching methods are facing growing challenges. It is the inevitable trend that applyingthe computer and network technologies into the teaching methods. Computer AssistedInstruction (CAI) is such examples, which combine modern information technologywith the traditional teaching methods. We take CAI systems as a type of efficientteaching tools. Currently, a large number of computer-aided teaching software has beendeveloped, and most of them use C/S or B/S service models. All teaching resources arestored on the central server, such as videos, PPTs and electronic whiteboards. Usersneed to browse or download these materials from the Center Server. However, storingall resources in centralized servers will lead to two issues. One is the bandwidthheterogeneity of each user’s access network. Because each user are scattered in differentgeographical regions, the bandwidth of access network may be great differences. Someusers such as using PDAs or Smart Phones, have limited download speeds, and can’twatch the videos in high QoS. Another one is it would make the server bottleneck whenlarge number of concurrent users access to the serve, thereby reducing system servicequality. To this end, this thesis presents a new computer-aided teaching system based onPeer-to-Peer (P2P) network, which is a collaborated distribution platform for teachingresources.In this thesis, we first surveyed the existing computer-aided teaching systems andfound their common functions and shortcomings. Then, we analyzed the requirementsof the computer-aided teaching system from the Office of Education Administrator inFuyang Teachers’ College. Based on above work, we designed and implemented acomputer-aided teaching system based on a hybrid P2P structure. This system includessix pieces of module: Discussion Forum, Bulletin Board System, Course MaterialsManagement, Homework Management, Online Examination subsystem, and TeachingVideo on Demand subsystem. In order to alleviate the pressure of the central server, wedeployed the CAI system based on a new hierarchical P2P structure. In this structure,there are two types of nodes: Super Nodes and Ordinary Nodes. The super node maintained in each department, is responsible for maintaining the registration andonline information of ordinary nodes within each college. The super node also givesresponse to the operation requests initiated by the ordinary nodes. The ordinary nodesaccessed to the teaching system, must first register in the super node maintained by eachschool. Each user (ordinary node) gets the services provided by the teaching systemafter logging in the super node.This thesis described several important parts such as requirements analysis, designingand implementation, and testing during the development process in detail. At last, theteaching system developed in this thesis has been successfully deployed within FuyangTeachers’ College, and works well. |
