This paper presents a project of Web-based Distance Learning support system. The
system has been built based on the Internet and World Wide Web facility. The system could be
accessed with a web browser which is directed to a certain web server address so that students can
do learning process just like in the real situation, such as student admissions, taking course
materials, syllabus, assignments, students grades, class discussions through web, and doing online
quizzes. Students could also join collaboration works by giving opinions, feedback and student
produced paper/web which can be shared to the entire learning community. Therefore, it will build
a collaborative learning environment where lectures together with students make constructive
knowledge databases for entire learning community.
This system has been developed based on Active Server Pages (ASP) technology from
Microsoft which is embedded in a web server. Web pages reside in a web server which is
connected to an SQL Database Server. Database server is used to store structured data such as
lectures/students personal information, course lists, syllabus and its descriptions, announcement
texts from lecturers, commentaries for discussion forum, student?s study evaluations, scores for
each assignment, quizzes for each course, assignments text from lectures, assignments which are
collected by students and students contribution/materials.
This system has been maintained by an administrator for maintaining and developing web
pages using HTML. The administrator also does ASP scripts programming to convert web pages
into active server pages. Lectures and students could contribute some course materials and share
their ideas through their web browser.
This web-based collaborative learning system gives the students more active role in the
information gathering and learning process, making the distance students feel part of a learning
community, therefore increasing motivation, comprehension and interaction with other students.