An Advanced Cloud-Based e-Learning Platform for Higher Education for Low Speed Internet

The social demand for internationalized educational program is continuously increasing. The role of universities is therefore to change the learning environment to e-Communication approach because the traditional classroom-based education cannot respond to this kind of on-demand distant learning and social demands. Moreover, video-based content format is increasing since it has more attractive visualization than former formats. In fact, streaming video can offer very exciting opportunities for online teaching and learning. Not only the video-based content is required to support the new learning environment, but also e-Meeting technology for real time online lecture and meeting. Currently, several e-Learning systems have been established to support academic institutions in rural areas. Likewise, many collaborative projects have the target to increase the number of e-Learning contents based on video materials, and to be shared within the collaborative developing countries. However, it is hard to use video materials for the e-Learning contents, and provide the video meeting system among members, since the Inter-net infrastructure in these countries is not good enough for applications requiring high-speed network. This dissertation provides two main contributions based on the WebELS system to solve the limitations of existing authoring tools for video-based learning content, and to support the social demand for internationalized educational program and suitable online meeting management requirements in the business sector. This dissertation consists of seven chapters briefly described as follows: Chapter 1 presents the background and current technologies of e-Learning platforms. The recent progress of information and communications technology (ICT) and information of society has made Internet-based communication become a popular approach and widely used methodology on delivering various educational programs and organizational business situations. Graduate students and company employees are continuously in need to learn more advanced knowledge, but often-i ii times have limited opportunities due to time, location, and cost limitations. To support self-learning on higher education, a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is considered. Moreover, the trend of video-based learning content is increasing since it can increase the students' intention to learn with the attractive content. Furthermore, cloud computing system, being a popular technology, is considered to serve the server side services because it can be implemented in a wide variety of architectures and technologies. It can also minimize IT investment costs for the education and business sectors. The implementation of a cloud computing to e-Learning system has its peculiarities and therefore needs a specific approach for the developing countries where the Internet condition …