| Abstract |
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Content development for e-mode of delivery systems must be specific to particular learner levels, such as: whether the learner is of the level of Diploma (lower) or Degree (middle) or Post Graduate (higher) etc. In view of developing content deliverables that are specific to levels of the e-learners, scalability would become an important criterion so that the developers could reduce their efforts through partly reusing the existing system modules. Scalability is the ability of a system, or process to handle a growing amount of work in a capable manner or its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth. This paper focuses on how to deliver a scalable, flexible, and yet cost-effective e-content for three different but vertically upward leaner levels namely Diploma (lower level), Degree (middle level) and Post Graduate (PG) (Higher level) of Computer Application subject content. It is proposed to introduce a base e-content object, which is recommended to be of small and reusable in nature. This base content should be editable for different learner levels for future requirements so as to make it feasible for upward vertical scaling. Even though literature on scalability of e-learning systems (for expansion to a growing number of users for the future) is available already, study on scalability for e-content that would be used by different learner levels are rarely seen. The analysis for scalability is limited to components such as file sizes and media specific data that influence developmental efforts of the e-content for the future. Certain scaling factors on these chosen components for the three delimited learner levels have been evolved through experiments. The paper demonstrates the importance of these scaling factors which would indicate whether or not the base content might become feasible to scale up vertically for higher learner levels. |
