Applications
EifFE-L meets ECLIPSE:
an integrated open source
e-learning environment
Giovanni Adorni1, Mauro Coccoli1, Lidia Stanganelli1,
Paolo Maresca2
1
Dipartimento di Informatica Sistemistica e Telematica, Università di Genova
2
Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di
Napoli “Federico II”
{adorni, mauro.coccoli, lidia.stanganelli}@unige.it,
paolo.maresca@unina.it
Keywords: e-learning, learning environment, open source, eclipse, web
services.
Abstract
This work reports on the process of integration of the EifFE-L open source
e-learning platform within the Eclipse open source development platform,
with the aim to create an open framework for both distance education
and knowledge management. The fusion of the two environments can lead
several advantages: EifFE-L has earned in flexibility having acquired the
possibility to take advantage of a powerful and easy to use development
environment and has thus be been able to evolve following the ever growing
requirements of e-learning; Eclipse has made a further step ahead in the
direction of becoming an e-learning tool for the programming languages and
for the management of virtual laboratories and simulation environments.
Journal of e-Learning
and Knowledge Society — Vol. 5, n. 3, September 2009 (pp. 123 - 131)
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Vol. 5, n. 3, September 2009
1 Introduction
In the past few years one can observe that education is changing, resembling
more and more the mass media with the risk of producing just superficial
knowledge. The frontal lesson, even if supported by multimedia subsidies,
is similar to a show in which the teacher plays a monologue that often leaves
no trace in the mind of the students. Generally speaking, when knowledge is
introduced without the demand of an effort from who must learn, students do
not activate their brain and, more important, they do not activate that part of
the mind dedicated to the management of the acquired knowledge.
E-learning tools and services make it possible to center the learning process around the students, moving the focus away from the teacher. Despite the
fact that they cannot be considered equivalent or substitutes for the traditional
forms of teaching, e-learning lessons can be an add-on oriented to different
types of users:
• students attending lessons;
• students that cannot attend lessons because they are also working or they
live far from the University;
• graduate people who want to find their first job or a better job than the
one they already have, so that they keep on studying, to be always up
to date.
In the first case, students will have the possibility of accessing e-learning
facilities so that they can study more and make self-assessment; in the second
case, students will have the possibility of attending courses in any University
they prefer, according to their specific constraints in time and place; in the third
case people will have the opportunity of keeping up to date in any specific field
and realizing the model of lifelong learning.
Based on the above scenario, e-learning has to be considered in different
ways:
• An amplifier for traditional didactic techniques. This is the case in which
the development of specific services for the students (lessons calendar,
course programs, sign up for lessons and exams, communication on
events and services, bulletin board, etc.) as well as communication tools
both asynchronous and synchronous, delivery of teaching materials, and
more are needed. This is the case of blended learning.
• Online courses. In an online course, the only available communication
means is the web and both teachers and students use an e-learning environment for their interactions and management (according to the Italian
law, online learning is regulated by the “Decreto Interministeriale 17
aprile 2003, GU 29 aprile 2003, n. 98”). In this specific case, the course
must show a multimedia value higher than in the previous case, since
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Giovanni Adorni, Mauro Coccoli, Lidia Stanganelli, Paolo Maresca - EifFE-L meets ECLIPSE: an integrated open source elearning environment
it is the only available source. Online courses can be very different and
we must distinguish if we are talking about a regular University course
or a lifelong learning activity.
E-learning is not just a different way of learning for teachers too must modify their strategies. Contents can be the same of a traditional lesson but they
must be treated in a different way from both the point of view of the language
and the tools used.
In this work the focus will be on e-learning tools and services, with specific
reference to both blended learning and online courses. The working environments must be flexible and customizable so to allow the use of a variety of
didactic models, techniques, and strategies as well as web communication and
knowledge sharing tools. Moreover, they must be available to a wide variety of
different devices, including palmtop and mobile phones. In this scenario, this
paper reports on the project of integration of an e-learning platform (specifically
designed for university) and an open, integrated software development environment. The project is called EifFE-L meets Eclipse (EmƎ ). The integration
of the open source e-learning platform EifFE-L1 (Environment for Freedom in
E-Learning) and the open source development environment Eclipse2, is made
with the aim to create an open development environment for education and
knowledge management. All the tools of the project are open source and they
are integrated in the Eclipse open architecture.
The ΕmƎ project was born with the aim to create a system containing various instruments for the didactics on the web, with the idea of offering a complete service to the customer. After the first release, in which EifFE-L could be
considered like a stand-alone application, now it can be installed as an Eclipse
plug-in. The new synergy between the two platforms allows EifFE-L to be
upgraded and extended through Eclipse, which improves interoperability with
many other tools and many development or simulation environments. Another
key aspect of the ΕmƎ project regards the creation of a simulation environment
to be used in distance education projects. Learning by doing and learning from
experience, from the real world, requires the possibility of simulating a scenario, dipping the students into a real situation.
In Section 2 we describe the architecture of the system Section 3 is about
the description of the software used for the set-up of the system, with some
details on the implemented architecture. f Finally, in Section 4, we present our
conclusions and future perspectives.
1
2
http://www.eiffe-l.org
http://www.eclipse.org
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2 Architecture of the Em∃ System
As already stated, the ΕmƎ project has the aim to merge together, in a
unique working environment, two separate products: EifFE-L with Eclipse.
Specific issues on the integration will be detailed so that the integrated system
architecture can be outlined.
2.1 EifFE-L
EifFE-L is a platform-independent LCMS (Learning Content Management System) built on the specific needs of e-learning and blended learning
in medium-large Italian Universities. It was developed under the CampusOne3 project, funded by CRUI (the Italian Conference of the Chancellors), as
an open source application, available on sourceforge4 (Adorni and Sugliano,
2005), released under the GPL license. EifFE-L is a bunch of different subsystems, and, according to a standard client server architecture, it grounds on
a web server and a database, offering a variety of e-learning services and tools
in a web browser friendly interface;, in addition, it can interact with external
services provided by different legacy systems.
Fig. 1: The EifFE-L system architecture
Generally speaking, it is a standard LCMS (Learning Content Management
System) acting like a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) and it is currently
3
4
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http://www.campusone.unige.it/azione-1d
http://sourceforge.net/projects/eiffe-l
Giovanni Adorni, Mauro Coccoli, Lidia Stanganelli, Paolo Maresca - EifFE-L meets ECLIPSE: an integrated open source elearning environment
used at the University of Genoa and in a number of EC funded projects. The
architecture is depicted in Figure 1 (Adorni and Premuda, 2004). More in
detail, EifFE-L is written in Free Pascal, it uses an Apache web server and a
Firebird SQL database.
2.2 Eclipse
Eclipse is full-featured development environment, continuously growing in
functionality and support. It is an open source system and an official community
exists, supporting the project, with the objective of developing an open and
extensible development platform for the management of complex software
systems. This community is involved in the research in the field of e-learning,
in international projects such as Ecsis5, Gild6, and Penumbra7 for teaching the
C++ and Java language, and for the management of complex didactic solutions
(Maresca 2008; Maresca and Savino 2008a; 2008b).
2.3 Integration
Given the specific situation with reference to the tools and languages used
for building EifFE-L, a specific release of Eclipse has been necessary, with a
Free Pascal compiler. Also, the compliancy with the Firebird SQL database
server has been verified.
The chosen version has been developed within the Eclipse community and
is available as a specific release of the platform, under the code name EclipseGavab.
First, the development environment was duly set-up and configured so that
the integration activity could begin. The wrapping technique was used, very
common for the re-use of enclosed software system, so that external access
was possible to the functionality and data inside the EifFE-L system, which
can be fully exploited and further, developed (Figure 2). New functionalities
can be added, after making the system available by means of new interfaces
(API - Application Programming Interfaces).
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/indextech.cgi/ecesis-home/downloads
http://gild.cs.uvic.ca
7
http://sourceforge.net/projects/purdue-penumbra
5
6
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Fig. 2: EifFE-L integrated in Eclipse-Gavab
The role of the wrapper is that of driving the integration of the inherited
system inside a new implementation, which makes it available as a set of
reusable services (an Apache module in this case) so that ΕmƎ acts like a web
service (Figure 3).
Fig. 3: EifFE-L used like a web service
3 Working environment
For the realization of the sketch in Figure 3, a variety of software has been
used. This is briefly described in here.
• Lazarus - Open source software project that allows programming in Free
Pascal (ver. 0.9.26 Beta).
• Eclipse Gavab - A specific version of the Eclipse multi-platform distri-
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Giovanni Adorni, Mauro Coccoli, Lidia Stanganelli, Paolo Maresca - EifFE-L meets ECLIPSE: an integrated open source elearning environment
bution, released by the GAVAB8 research group (Universidad Rey Juan
Carlos, Madrid). It allows compiling Free Pascal source code (ver. 2.0).
It is the main development environment for both compiling the project
files and producing the Apache module outcome of the work done.
• Apache - The open source modular web server project (ver. 2.2.3).
• Firebird - A full-featured, reliable, high performance open source SQL
DataBase Management System (ver. 1.5.3).
3.1 Development
The development of the project started from the database. It was necessary
to have full control from inside Eclipse, then it was possible to start importing
the Free Pascal project files. The Firebird database can be accessed and used in
the local installation as well as in a remote connection with the working installation in Genoa. Once investigated the use of Firebird in Eclipse, the Eclipse
Gavab was used for compiling the original source code.
3.2 Configuration
Some special configuration also has to be done so that the Apache web
server can work as needed by the application. The outcome of compilation of
the EifFE-L project in the Eclipse Gavab environment is an Apache module
that needs to be integrated in its core so that the service can have better performance with respect to any other application written in script language. A
slight modification in the Apache configuration file is needed, so that EifFE-L
can be recognized and used as a module from inside the web server. Also an
initialization file is needed for EifFE-L module to behave correctly. Apache
is very flexible and it can be configured according to specific instructions in
different configuration files. All of the files needed for the configuration, initialization, and execution of EifFE-L are inside the Eclipse Gavab workspace
and the integration is done when Apache also is running in the same workspace.
Another key point for the successful release of the Apache module is the choice
of the operating system for the server to run on. In the case of Linux systems,
a “.so” file has to be generated while in the MS Windows operating system, a
“.dll” file library is needed. This can be easily achieved by means of the correct
configuration of the compilation options in Eclipse Gavab.
3.3 Apache as an external tool
To use Apache as an external tool, two different instructions are needed:
one for executing the web server (called Apache_Start) and another one for
8
http://www.gavab.es/wiki/eclipsegavab
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stopping it (called Apache_Stop). The last step is to run the Apache server and
to use the application.
3.4 Application testing
After making Apache work, the application functionality can be tested using
the Eclipse internal web browser. To access the application, the domain address
has to be typed in the address bar and the login screen appears. Once the user
has logged-in, the welcome page of the EifFE-L system is shown and contents
in the database can be accessed according to the user’s needs, profile, and
rights. To end the session, users have to leave the system logging out, and then
terminate the execution of the Apache server.
Conclusions
In this paper, the process of integration between different open source
technologies and tools has been described, with the aim of creating an open,
multi-platform e-learning environment, interoperable with other systems and
services. Moreover, the system is compliant with the Italian law for e-learning
and University.
Integrating EifFE-L within the Eclipse Gavab, can give some advantages to
the EifFE-L users, for they can access an internal instance of the system through
the web browser, extend the functionality and easily install it.
Moreover, thanks to this project, EifFE-L meets Eclipse as the open source
community of Free Pascal meets the Eclipse open source community. Another
key point is the possibility of re-using the large amount of data that was already
available thanks to the previous EifFE-L experience in distance education.
The wrapping has been done on the whole system, on both the application
and the data so to obtain an Eclipse higher level of integration, right under the
API level, between the application invocation and the data integration. One can
invoke the application from inside the Eclipse platform, using a remote connection to a remote database. In such a novel architecture, the EifFE-L system
has been revamped and the dead-point has been moved far ahead since further
development is possible thanks to the use of Eclipse plug-in.
Future work is related to the realization of web services so that users can
have custom access to EifFE-L, depending on the specific needs of both the
users themselves and the related education projects.
In the actual situation, EmƎ is available on Linux Linux, Windows XP, and
Vista 32 bit. Extensions will be soon available for Mac and Windows Vista
64 bit.
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