M-LEARNING QUALITY ASSURANCE- SUGGESTIONS TO MEASURE THE PROGRESS

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1 BEST: International Journal of Management, Information Technology and Engineering (BEST: IJMITE) ISSN (P): , ISSN (E): X, Vol. 4, Issue 3, Mar2016, BEST Journals M-LEARNING QUALITY ASSURANCE- SUGGESTIONS TO MEASURE THE PROGRESS JAYALAKSHMI SRINIVASAN Assistant-Professor-cum-H.O.D, B. Sc IT, V.E.S. College of Arts, Science and Commerce Chembur, India ABSTRACT The educational process is a complex service which involves a producer and a consumer. Its complexity increases when mobile platforms are used due their diversity and particularities. In order to have a high quality educational process when using mobile technologies, a continuous quality management process needs to take place at several levels. The levels where the quality management process has to be implemented are: the mobile learning application developer, the mobile learning content provider and the organization that uses mobile learning services (customer). Quality related costs are higher due to mobile learning system complexity. This paper presents a number of factors that influence the quality of digital content and applications software running on mobile devices. Quality management is based on the quality characteristics that need to be identified and quantified. Quality metrics and indicators for mobile learning process were developed. The metrics and indicators have to be integrated in a system in order to ensure a high quality management system for mobile learning process. KEYWORDS: M-learning, Metrics, Indicators, Quality, QA, Mobile Learning INTRODUFCTION While the electronic paper provided support for content delivery through the Internet, reducing additional transport costs and time delays, the mobile devices fill gaps of a traditional learning process, through their particular features. One of the main advantages of mobile learning is that the process can take place anywhere and at any time. It is necessary to provide a quality management process in order to insure a certain degree of quality for mobile learning services. Quality can be observed in the interaction between a producer and a consumer. Product quality is the sum of all technical, economic and social characteristics a product is endowed with in order to fulfill certain social needs purposes at a certain moment in time. Service quality is defined by the utility within the required quality boundaries. The quality management process consists of quality planning, controlling and assurance it is needed to analyze the impact of mobile learning on education quality because this could positively affect the process by providing basic resources for delivering information to users. A good quality management process in all areas leads to an increased level of quality in the educational system. The m-learning services are not intended to be used exclusively in the higher education environment. They are intended for all educational processes, at all levels, having a complementary role. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF M-LEARNING Mobile learning refers to the acquisition of a skill or knowledge set via a mobile device such as a cell phone. It is similar to e-learning (electronic learning) in that it relies on technology to provide data, but unlike e-learning, mobile learning is not connected. This type of learning has characteristics that make it distinct. Impact Factor (JCC): This article can be downloaded from

2 124 Jayalakshmi Srinivasan Spontaneous Mobile learning is more spontaneous than other learning types. It is this spontaneity that is probably the most defining characteristic of mobile learning. Mobile learning is context aware, meaning that you may learn with your mobile device regardless of where you happen to be. You do not have to be in a Training Center or classroom. This lets you learn on the stimulus of the moment, with the environment often directing learning choices. Private Mobile learning is private. This does not mean that the information cannot be shared with others once you learn it, or that the data is accessible only to you. Rather, it means that only one person at a time usually has access to the mobile device and that you may access the data you want independently from other learners. Informal Because mobile learning is spontaneous and private in nature, it also is informal. You do not need to learn according to a course schedule. If you become curious about a side topic, you may explore that side topic at your leisure. Part of the reason for this characteristic of mobile learning is that the data people gather through mobile learning tends to be small -- for example, you might need only the name of a specific hard drive as you're shopping instead of a complete explanation of how the drive works and how it was developed. Interactive Mobile learning, like all e-learning, is interactive. You, the user, drive the direction of the learning experience rather than sitting passively and having someone else provide data for you. Mobile learning must be interactive because it relies on data from servers -- the only way it works is if you define what data to examine. The functions of your mobile applications are what allow varying levels of interactivity. SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGES OF LEARNING The significant challenges are: Mobility: the ability to link to activities in the outside world also provides students with the capability to escape the classroom and engage in activities that do not correspond with either the teacher s agenda or the curriculum. The anytime, anywhere capabilities of mobile devices encourage learning experiences outside of a teacher-managed classroom environment. Both scenarios present significant challenges to conventional teaching practices. Informality: students may abandon their use of certain technologies if they perceive their social networks to be under attack. The benefits of the informality of mobile devices may be lost if their use becomes widespread throughout formal education. Ownership: students want to own and control their personal mobile devices, but this presents a challenge when they bring it in to the classroom, For example, a group of researchers decided into offer mobile devices for students, 150 students, to see if they use them for other things at home, but not for learning. Most of them use mobile devices for the things they enjoy most, instant messaging and downloading music, a few of them accessing Internet pornography at home and two students hacking into teachers computers. Only a few use mobile devices for improve their knowledge. The results prove that ownership of mobile devices does, however, present a challenge to conventional teaching practices. Index Copernicus Value: 3.0 Articles can be sent to editor.bestjournals@gmail.com

3 M-Learning Quality Assurance- Suggestions to Measure the Progress 125 Mobile devices can enable students to learn by exploring their world, in continual communication with and through technology. Instant messaging, for example, enables students to create learning communities and exchanged anywhere in the world their ideas. QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN SERVICES Mobile Learning Quality Management Components Mobile learning (m-learning) is the process of delivering educational content to individuals through mobile technologies and devices. The Basic Components of the Process are The mobile learning content (MLC) described by text, Graphics and multimedia content(audio, video and animation); This type of elements help the learner to acquire and to understand information more easily based on his sensory memory; The multimedia educational software (MES) represents the software component of the process and its role is to provide the connection layer between the device and the content and it also makes possible the delivery of information; The mobile learning device (MLD) is the hardware component and is represented by any mobile electronic device that can be configured and has a minimal set of features that can provide support for executing and managing software applications; Devices that comply with these requirements are PDAs and smartphones (with/without touch screens). The mobile learning process has evolved as an auxiliary instrument of the traditional education methods. The premise that has allowed that is defined by the fast development trend in the mobile devices area and by the human need to implement the technology that increases the efficiency of existing learning methods. At present there is an estimated ratio of 90% between the number of worldwide mobile devices and global population and that the growth rate in mobile devices market for 2009 is of 119%.In addition, with one billion devices per year production rate for mobile phones in 2009, one can say that in theory each person in the world will have the physical resources to be reached by mobile learning process in some way. In developed countries, these rates are greater and studies revealed that young people integrated more rapidly mobile devices in their daily activities. Based on these facts it is important to be understood that one of the objectives of mobile learning is to use the existing infrastructure and to extend the education process outside the classroom. This is a process that has a continuous evolution based mostly on the technical development of the mobile devices industry. As the technology offers new facilities, the process will include them and will provide more efficient ways to deliver learning content. From early approaches of the mobile learning field, and, the mobile device has been upgraded in seven years from the small mono-color screen with limited multimedia features to a personal organizer with full computer characteristics. The quality management for mobile learning processes can be seen at least at three levels, Mobile application developer, ; Mobile learning content provider; Impact Factor (JCC): This article can be downloaded from

4 126 Jayalakshmi Srinivasan Mobile learning services consumer s organization. METRICS FOR M-LEARNING APPLICATIONS The software metric is a mathematical model developed based on an equation that has the form y =f(x). A mathematical model contains one or more equations, in equations and has one or more objective functions. Its role is to describe the stage of associate system. The role of software metric is to measure a certain characteristic of a software application including all factors that influence the level of measured characteristic. Being applied to all software application from a homogeneous set, the metrics become the instrument that helps making classifications and hierarchies of analyzed software applications. Many M-learning applications use in the development stage a Web-based application type framework. The reason is given by the: Capability of mobile devices to get web content through high speed mobile data connections like 3G; despite the display size, various techniques are used to minimize details and to emphasize information in Web pages requested by mobile clients; scale; Variety of instruments, programming environments and languages, techniques and methods used on a large Open software technologies that reduce the costs for proprietary tools; Great number of online communities and free code libraries that reduce the cost of development from start; Easiness to combine multimedia components into an application. Because of that, this chapter analyzes the metrics from the point of view of a Web application highlighting the particularities of applying these metrics on m-learning applications. Among the first utilized models of measuring the quality level of m-learning applications were the next indicators: Dimension of occupied space; Access count of a page or topic; Number of pages read in a working session These metrics proved to be capable of analyzing the phenomenon only at a superficial level and could not be used to improve the quality of information contained in pages and also could not point out the factors that influence the quality level of m-learning application. Based on measured attributes, the Web metrics are classified, as in: Metrics that measure the properties of the associate graph; the application analyzed through her components, Web pages, defines a virtual graph whose nodes are represented by pages and the connections between them define the roads of graphs nodes; the metrics based on graph s application analyze the structure both on high and detailed level; Metrics that analyze the significance of web page; these indicators measure the level of quality and relevance of web page from the perspective of informational needs of users; the results obtained by applying these metrics are used to make an hierarchy sort by the relevance of the returned pages of searching engines; Metrics that characterize the way of using the accessed web pages; the way that user interacts with web page offers important data used to define the content, the structure and presentation of the information; these metrics Index Copernicus Value: 3.0 Articles can be sent to editor.bestjournals@gmail.com

5 M-Learning Quality Assurance- Suggestions to Measure the Progress 127 evaluates the user s behavior; Metrics that measure the similarity level; these indicators describe the connections between pages; Metrics for finding and searching that evaluates the web services performance of finding and searching information in web pages; Metrics of information theory; describe those properties of web pages regarding need, generating and using information; The models used at defining these indicators come from various areas such as metrics software, finding information, sociology, econometrics, all being adapted to serve the evaluation process of web applications quality. Some of analyzed metrics are specific to web application field. M-LEARNING APPLICATIONS QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS There are numerous factors that influence the learning process. In the case of mobile learning the situation is more complex because of the process particularities, especially the ones derived from the IT field. This approach takes into consideration that a mobile learning process is an educational one, but also a technical one. It is entirely based on using mobile technologies to deliver educational content and its evaluation means more than the evaluation of a book or another traditional resource. In this scenario, the learning process quality is influenced by the content quality and by the way it is delivered to students through mobile technologies. The technical features of the mobile device refer to: physical characteristics of the device as weight, dimensions, type of screen; operating system and system operations; These are processes not visible to the users but are influencing the application and represent the base for developing Mobile Applications; user interface that allows users to interact with the application and with other users; it represents the foundation used to get user input into the m-learning application; QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS AND METRICS RELATED TO M-LEARNING PROCESS The quality of the application is a term that allows many interpretations and the basic interpretation is satisfaction of the customers; however, despite this flexibility it preserves its vital role in analyzing the software product. It is important for both developers and users. The quality of the mobile learning application is described from the viewpoint of software quality characteristics. There are many standards and quality characteristics systems, from which the most known is ISO 9126 and, that define several sets of the software characteristics for applications. Taking into consideration this large amount of information and adding to that the cost and time limits of a software development process a straightforward conclusion is the need to focus on several quality characteristics. This set of quality criteria is defined selecting the significant characteristics set for the analyzed mobile learning application. The risk of ignoring this aspect will render the final results as less accurate. Furthermore, the objectives of the development process are affected and resources are used in less important areas. Producers target to maximize the general quality levels improving those Impact Factor (JCC): This article can be downloaded from

6 128 Jayalakshmi Srinivasan characteristics which are considered to be critical. The reason for that is the fact that resources are limited and the final quality/cost value must be acceptable and cost-effective. The testing of mobile learning applications has a very important role in increasing the level of quality. The quality process management regarding the educational and informational content is standardized by the ISO/IEC standard. The organization that implements mobile learning services must define a clear policy regarding user training and educational profile. This provides a high degree of knowledge assimilation for learners. CONCLUSIONS There is no fixed template for delivering educational content because it must be realized having in mind a particular target group; the analysis of the user is a stage that takes place in the early phase of the MLC development; Pedagogical characteristics of the multimedia educational software (MES) that allow users to interact, to collaborate between each other or to personalize the virtual environment according to their needs; the mobile lesson must attract learners and must gain their focus because in the m-learning scenario the user is rarely supervised by another person. Instructional support materials allow developers to use a large set of tools used to deliver content in various formats; the multimedia educational software could implement features like photo or audio galleries, discussion forums, lectures and presentations, assignments and other resources to download on the mobile device; type of multimedia support used to deliver content as audio, video, image and text resources. The software characteristics describe the quality of the m-learning application. Implementing and reaching a high level of quality for the application is only a stage in the complex process of development. Improving these particular characteristics will lead to the quality level that meets the user expectations. REFERENCES 1. Quality characteristics and Metrics related to M-learning process-by Paul and Boja 2. Mobile Learning Applications-by Dochev 3. Framework of Mobile Learning-by Ali and Jari 4. Software Characteristics of Mobile Learning by Boja and Batagan 5. Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS Int. Conference on MATHEMATICS and COMPUTERS in BUSINESS and ECONOMICS ISSN: ISBN: Index Copernicus Value: 3.0 Articles can be sent to editor.bestjournals@gmail.com