Microsoft cloud services in distance learning system "Kherson Virtual University"

One of the objectives of education in modern society is to ensure that every person has free and open access to education throughout his life, regardless of their interests, abilities and needs. Therefore, the distance learning systems (DLS) become relevant [1]. Now education does not depend on the geographic location of person, a significant number of obstacles on the way of education disappear with the emergence of distance education.

Among the main functional requirements to electronic educational resources in distance learning can be identified requirements of visibility and interactivity, both in lectures and tutorials, and tests and virtual labs. Microsoft Office documents are widely used in electronic learning resources. Therefore there is a need to display on the Web-resource pages Excel spreadsheet data, graphs, diagrams.

With the help of spreadsheet calculation is carried out promptly and processing large amounts of data and a visual representation of them in a short time, allowing almost instantaneous output this information to a computer monitor. The main advantage of a spreadsheet is that there is a possibility of instantaneous automatic recalculation of all data related to functional dependencies, when the value of any items in the table is changed.

Because of its simplicity and usability, opportunities of teamwork, interaction with Internet re-sources, providing powerful tools for data analysis, the program Microsoft Excel is one of the most common, popular means to work with documents that have a tabular structure.

E-learning resource in DLS, such as “Kherson Virtual University” (KVU), should be effective and compelling it is need to solve the problem of displaying on Web-page Excel spreadsheet with the data, graphs, diagrams, as well as create and edit Excel, for example: lectures, practical work, tests. Because of this, there is the problem associated with the display Excel spreadsheets data on the Web pages.

The basic ways of displaying Excel spreadsheets data on the Web pages are:

- saving MS Excel table in XML file followed by it to display on Web page [2];

- development of web-oriented software support module of spreadsheets use in LMS with connection of software libraries to process of spreadsheets: Microsoft Office Web Apps on Share-Point Foundation 2010 database [3,4], Excel Reader.NET [5], Excel Viewer 2.0, and others for processing and display MS Excel spreadsheet on Web-pages;

- use of online cloud services for processing with spreadsheets such as OneDrive [6], Google- Drive [7] and others.

Simple and convenient solution is using cloud services.

Researchers at the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education note that the acquisition and maintenance of various computer hardware and software in modern educational institutions constantly requires significant financial investments and attracting qualified specialists (Neil Sclater, Cloud Computing in Education [8]). Now cloud computing and virtualization of computing platform reduce the cost of technology.

With the help of cloud services, you can access information resources at any level and any power division the rights of different groups of users with respect to resources, using only an Internet connection and a Web browser. Advantages of cloud technologies are managing large infrastructures, security, lack of dependence on modifications of computers and software. The disadvantages are dependent on the availability and quality of the communication channel, the risks of technical failures and legal issues

Cloud services may be divided into three main categories:

- Infrastructure as a service.

- Platform as a service.

- Software as a service.

As an example of the use of cloud technologies in education, can be given private rooms for students and teachers, electronic journals, thematic forums where students can exchange information, and more. Also, search for information, where students can solve certain learning tasks even in the absence of a teacher or under his supervision.

Object of research is the cloud services.

Subject of research is the Microsoft cloud services.

The purpose of research is design, development and implementation of software module «ExcelReader» for use Excel spreadsheets on the Web pages of distance learning systems, in particu-lar, the system “Kherson Virtual University” [9].

The paper deals with the following tasks:

1. Analyze of known software solutions display Excel-documents in the Web-based applications.

2. Select an efficient technology software processing Excel-documents.

3. Design the system to access and use Web services processing Excel-documents in distance learning system.

4. Develop software module «ExcelReader» for correct display and edit Excel-documents on Web pages in DLS.

5. Establish program module «ExcelReader» in the distance learning system “Kherson Virtual University”.

Model

Among the most popular cloud services are: virtual hosting Amazon, TheRackspace, Google, Microsoft, iCloud, SugarSync, Dropbox, Joyent, GoGrid, Terremark, Savvis, Verizon, NewServers, Yandex.

Consider two popular cloud services from Google and Microsoft for their use in distance learning.

We list the basic services offered Google:

- Gmail - mail system.

- Google Sites - Free Hosting, using wiki technology.

- Google Calendar - online service for scheduling meetings, events and affairs with reference to the calendar. It is possible sharing a calendar by user group. Service is integrated with Gmail.

- Google Drive - cloud storage with the possibility of online (Web Browser) view the contents of multiple types of files (including files and Photoshop). Support of popular office formats such as .Docx, .Doc, .Xls, .Pdf, .Rtf, .Txt, .Html, .Jpeg, .Png, .Gif, .Zip, .Rar etc., downloaded files for disc with such formats you can open and view and some of them edit online and offline within your Web browser. It is available storage capacity up to 15 GB.

To use all of the above services, it is required Gmail account.

Now consider what is included in the cloud service from Microsoft:

- OneDrive (previous name SkyDrive) - cloud storage. Provides up to 7 GB.

- Office Web Apps - tool for creating and working with documents MS Office, created in Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint.

- Postal service Outlook

- Calendar - Classic organizer.

- People - is a tool of communicating with your contacts in Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Sina and Twitter.

To work in OneDrive and for other services from Microsoft, you must have Microsoft account.

Consider the possibility of a teacher working with cloud services Microsoft in DLS KVU (Fig. 1).

Both of these services allow implementing on the Web page a document stored in the cloud storage. Microsoft, unlike Google allows you to dynamically work with embedded documents on the Web page.

This ability has played a determinative role in our choice of a cloud service, as important for us to work with dynamic documents in distance learning system “Kherson Virtual University”.

An important feature is that the interactivity will allow the teacher during the learning process to demonstrate connection the above theoretical material with practical use of interactive documents in the same system, and the student has the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in practice during classes that fix the results of mastering the material.

And all this will be possible in a single LMS. For example, simplex - method of solving tasks using a spreadsheet Excel is studied on the lesson. The teacher will be able to demonstrate to students the dependence on the values of its variables, as well as student can independently "sound" this method.

Opportunities at working in Excel Web App are: working with Spreadsheets and books in the browser or in MS Excel desktop version (Fig.2).

For the implementation of MS Office document in text of electronic learning resource, the user must perform a series of actions: Sign in OneDrive, creation in OneDrive Microsoft document or using an existing document in OneDrive, setting access to this document, and set up its displaying on html-page of resource, in which the document will be implemented, obtaining html- code and finally inserting this html-code in editor of html-page.

Fig. 1. Use case diagram “Possible teacher working with Microsoft cloud services ”

Algorithm of the teacher's activity with Excel-documents is presented at Fig.3-4 .

We now describe the operation of the module. Let's look at an example of inserting an Excel spreadsheet from OneDrive in an electronic resource of DLS KVU. When you call the insert command object from the Microsoft OneDrive in its address KVU server sends the request. After that there is a check of user authorization, after authentication all files of the user are displayed it means the page of “cloud” service of storage document OneDrive is opened. The user has the opportunity to create a Microsoft document (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote) or open a document stored on OneDrive for further work with it.

For example, consider the process of creating and editing Excel-documents (Fig.5-6).

Fig.2. Use Case-diagram “Opportunities for teacher offered Excel Web App”

Fig.3. Algorithm of creation Excel-document with Microsoft service

Fig.4. Algorithm of implementation of document in the distance learning system “Kherson Virtual

University ”

Schema of model create

Send

HTML-page with Rich- editor

Request to Access to Excel-table

Fig. 6. Scheme of model of Excel-document editing process

Description of the development system

Prerequisite to add Excel-table to html-page of e-learning resource is the presence of an account OneDrive, so always at request to add Microsoft document the check of authorization in OneDrive will be.

For adding document to a record in DLS “Kherson Virtual University” on the site OneDrive it is necessary to set the display of document and access rights to it, and get a html-document code, which is iframe tag types:

After that you should insert the generated code into the html-page editor and save the changes. Similarly, the PowerPoint Online, OneNote Online and Word Online documents can be used.

For development of module «ExcelReader» the following technologies: JavaScript, HTML, .Net. Consider JavaScript - Code were used:

<script type="text/javascript">

<! --

var theElement = document.getElementById("div1");

//-->

</script>

document.getElementByld - method of object of document. It returns a reference to component of document, which can be used to modify the properties and calls to methods of component. We use this method to find places in the code where the document will be implemented in future.

Now consider the html-code, which is used to insert the document in the text of html-page:

<form name="my_form" id="my_form" action="#" method="get"> Insert HTML - code:

<input type="text" name="content" id="content" size="60" /> <input type="button" value="Send" onclick="theElement.innerHTML = document.my_form.content.value;" />

<input type="button" value="Update" onclick="theElement.innerHTML = document.my_form.content.value; " />

</form>

InnerHTML method we use to insert text.

When you click “Send” the document will be added in text of html-page of electronic educational resource in DLS “Kherson Virtual University”.

When you click “Update” the document will be updated in text of html-page in DLS “Kherson Virtual University” to the latest version of this document on the server OneDrive. spreadsheet electronic information software

1. Implementation in the educational process

How necessary and important service processing Excel-documents is in distance learning system “Kherson Virtual University”? To answer this question, we conducted a polling of students of Kherson State University, Department of Computer Science, Software Engineering and Economic Cybernetics. Assessing of the usefulness of this module was made on five-point scale from 1 to 5 points.

In the poll 210 students participated. Results of the poll were as follows (Table 1).

Table 1. Results of questioning of students.

The results of importance evaluation of service «ExcelReader» are presented at the diagram (Fig.7).

More than half of the students consider necessary to use service of processing of Excel documents in distance learning system “Kherson Virtual University”.

We calculate the average score x, which was exhibited for the usefulness of module: (1)

High average score of usefulness of service processing of Excel-documents confirms the need of its implementation in the educational process. We verify the accuracy of the obtained result using the criterion Our task is to check whether the significantly different obtained empirical data from the theoretically equally likely. For this it is necessary to find a theoretical frequency as equiprobable frequencies which are found by adding up all the frequencies, and dividing the count by the number of categories. In this case:

The formula for calculating the criterion x :

г =yk <4 EV2 X Ej