DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COLLABORATED E-LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

ABSTRACT
E-Learning is the use of technology to enable people to learn anytime and anywhere. E-Learning can include training, the delivery of just-in-time information and guidance from experts. It has become an increasingly popular learning approach in higher educational institutions due to the rapid growth of Internet technologies. E-learning can be conducted solely through online applications without instructors. In such cases, the application program guides learners to take the necessary action to achieve the learning outcomes. The aim of this paper is to develop an efficient web based learning management system, with focus on University academic needs. This platform have been designed with the help of Dreamweaver (compiler), then encoded with the languages mentioned; Html, Css, Javascript and Php.

Background of the Study
It is commonly thought that new technologies can make a big difference in education. In young ages especially, children can use the huge interactivity of new media, and develop their skills, knowledge, and perception of the world, under their parents’ monitoring, of course. E-learning includes all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked learning or not, serve as specific media to implement the learning process. This often involves both out-of-classroom and in-classroom educational experiences via technology, even as advances continue in regard to devices and curriculum. E-learning is the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge.
E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual education opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. It can be self-pace or instructor-led and includes media in the form of text, image, animation, streaming video and audio.

As information and communications technology (ICT) advances, organizations invest significant resources in ICT to support all aspects of organizational work from group work to individual teaching, training, and learning (Isakowitz et al. 1998).
The e-learning is not a new phenomenon in promoting education in some parts of world. Presently, some institutions in Nigeria are using it to promote distance education (DE) and lifelong learning. E-learning according to Sale (2002), is the use of electronic technology to deliver education and training applications, monitor learner’s performance and report learner’s progress. Hedge and Hayward (2004), defined it as an innovative approach for delivering electronically mediated, well-designed, learner-centered and interactive learning environments to anyone, anyplace, anytime by utilizing the internet and digital technologies in concern with instructional design principles. It is all about learning with the use of computers. In this age, learning with the use of computer is simply online ways of acquiring knowledge through the internet or through the offline – CD-ROM. The online involves the use of Internet Explorer/Navigator. It may be in form of Audio, Visual, and or Audio/Visual. The convergence of the internet and learning, or Internet enabled learning is called e-learning. The applications and process of e-learning include computer-based learning, web-based learning, virtual classroom and digital collaboration where contents is delivered via the internet, intranet/extranet, audio and or video tapes, satellite TV and CD-ROM (Islam, 1997). The revolutionary development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT’s) in education in the developed countries facilitated the establishment of 100% ICT – based University known as Virtual Universities. Here in Nigeria, very few of our conventional universities are now carrying out their academic activities through one form of ICT or the other. While the urge to embark on e-learning is still a dream to some because their infrastructure of ICT’s is very weak. The rapid expansion of ICTs in Nigeria offers an opportunity to consider its use in the promotion of DE. It offers students considerable benefits including increase access to learning opportunities, convenience of time, and place, making available a greater variety of learning resources, improve opportunities for individualized learning and emergence of more powerful cognitive tools (Khan, 1996, Pierre, 1998). Distance Education (DE) is a system of education characterized by physical separation between the teacher and the learner in which instruction is deliver through a variety of media including print and other ICTs to learner who may either have missed the opportunity earlier in life or have been denied the face-to-face formal education due to socio-economic, career, family and other circumstances. Jegede, (2003) defined distance education as education provided by a mode other than the conventional face-to-face method whose goals are similar to and just as noble and practical as those of on-campus full time face-to-face education.

Nigeria is the most populous nation in sub-Saharan Africa with about 140 million people (NPC, 2007), occupying a landmass of about 923,768 square kilometers and with over 274 ethic groups making up the federation. The social and economic dimensions of providing education for the population, within the context of prevailing national circumstances of dwindling financial and other resources in the face of developments needs are heavy. The ever-continuing growth in Nigeria’s population, the attendant escalating demand for education at all levels, the difficulty of re-sourcing education through the traditional means of face-to-face classroom bound mode, and the compelling need to provide education for all (EFA) irrespective of environmental, social or cultural circumstances have meant that the country must of necessity find the appropriate and cost effective means to respond adequately to the huge unmet demand for education. All these emerging situations have signal to the need for a comprehensive search for a more viable, robust, reliable, efficient, effective, and cost-beneficial educational solutions, which according to Jegede, (2003) and Sadeq, (2003) the most logical pathway to achieve these is by embracing distance education method.