A Word Wide Web Bulletin Board System Designed for Collaborative Learning: Detailed View on System Implementation

Abstract

The proposed system has the following novel features: a five-level user model, a dual-mode BBS, an on-line code converter on the Web, and facilities to perform behavior analysis. The users are initially classified into five levels: teachers, system operators, assistants, analysts and students. These five levels are more flexible than the conventional three-level structure. Widespread use of the conventional Telnet Bulletin Board System(BBS) implies that it contains many knowledge resources. Therefore, the resources can be more fully utilized if the Web-BBSs and Telnet-BBSs can be combined. In this work, we implement a dual-mode BBS to combine their resources. Moreover, with the increasing, frequency of academic exchanges between China and Taiwan, the proposed system can allow all Chinese students to l11ore openly exchange their opinions. Correspondingly, this work also includes the on-line code converter between traditional Chinese(Chinese Big5 Fan-Ti) and simplified Chinese(Chinese GB Jian-Ti). Furthermore, the behavior analysis tools adopted in the proposed system include a data collector of the students' learning paths and local mail exchange, students' logon intervals, statistics of hosts' addresses and hot topics of chatting rooms.