Regional Module

The regional module acts as an intermediary between the student module and the headquarters module. The main function of the regional model is to bridge the offline and online modes of the proposed model. The student modules work offline and students upload their updates to the regional module using a floppy disk. The headquarters module works online and the updates from the student module need to get updated to the headquarters module via the regional module. The regional module takes the updates and connects to the headquarters module online and transfers the updates to and from the headquarters module. The process of sending and receiving the updates are explained in this section.

In addition to acting as an intermediary the regional module also acts as a repository for the students within that region. Hence the regional module consists of two parts:

the repository and the regional model. As soon as the student model is initialised and uploaded into the regional module, each student model for individual students within that region is stored in the regional repository. In other words, this is a back up of the student model for the students within this particular region. Once students upload their updated model into the regional module using the floppy disk, the student models in the repository get updated. All the updates to the student models within the repository are made as soon as the upload takes place. However, updates to the regional model within the regional module only takes place at specified times in batch mode. The regional model is a profile of all the students within that particular region. The regional model stores the cumulative frequencies of competencies for all the students within that region. Table 4. 1 shows the regional student model and the

frequencies stored in this model. For example, question 1 has frequencies for the

number of students who have not attempted, number of students who have failed, number of students who have solved with help, and the number of students who have solved without help. Likewise for all the questions, learning units, and concepts a cumulative frequency is stored. Initially for all the questions, the frequencies for not attempted, failed, solved with help, and solved without help are set to zero. The same applies to the frequencies for the learning units and concepts.

Table 4. 1 : Regional Student Model (Competencies)

No. of students ''Not yet attempted" No. of students "In progress" No. of students "Completed"

No. of students "Mastered"

No. of students ''Notattempted" No. of students "Failed"

No. of students "Solved with help" No. of students "Solved without help"

Unit Learning Unit

No. of students "Prerequisite Incomplete" No. of students "Ready"

No. of students "Visited" No. of students "Completed" No. of students "Mastered"

At regular intervals, the regional module checks whether updates have been made to regional repository. If any updates have been received, these updates are used to update and compile the regional model. Depending on the update received, the frequencies of the regional model are changed. For example, if the new update

includes two students who have solved question 27 then 2 is added to the number of

students who have completed question 27. Likewise the frequencies are changed for

creating and maintaining a regional model are to provide a mechanism for communication between students and teachers and to understand the regional competencies for each and every measurable competency. These measurements can be used by teachers to understand whether a certain region does better or fairs lower in a given content. If the teacher fmds that attention is needed for any given content across a whole region, then updates to the content can be brought about for the whole region. The regional model allows the teachers to find the trends within each region.

In addition to the competencies, students' queries are also up loaded into the repository. During the batch processing operation in the regional module, these queries are also compiled into a list (text file). All the queries received are sorted in alphabetic order within the group they represent. For example, all the queries belonging to a particular learning unit are grouped together, while all the queries belonging to a particular concept are grouped together. The compiled list of queries and the updated regional model are uploaded into the headquarters module at designated times. This process occurs online during off-peak times. Before the regional model is uploaded it is also changed into a text file and only the updated content is added to this text file to minimise the amount of data transfer. The main reason being that the Internet connection between the regional centres and the headquarters are at best 56kbps dial-up connections. Mostly the bandwidth in the regional centres is 28.8 kbps.

The regional module also receives feedback for queries from the headquarters. Again these are received through the online connection and are stored in the regional module. These feedbacks need to be delivered to the respective students. When the

students try to upload their updated student models into the regional repository the regional module detects any feedbacks that are addressed to that particular student and downloads these into the student' s floppy disk. The student is then notified about it. The students then take their floppy disks and upload the feedback into their computers. In addition to queries addressed to individual students, queries addressed to all the students are also downloaded into the students' floppy disks.