Design of a Service-Oriented e-Learning Environment Dumitru Dan Burdescu 1 , Marian Cristian Mihăescu 1 Costel Marian Ionaşcu 2 and Bogdan Logofătu 3 1 University of Craiova, Software Engineering Department, Craiova, Romania 2 University of Craiova, Analysis, Statistics and Mathematics Department, Craiova, Romania 3 University of Bucharest, CREDIS Department, Bucharest, Romania {burdescu, mihaescu}@Ssoftware.ucv.ro, icostelm@yahoo.com logofatu@credis.ro Abstract. Within e-learning domain there is a tremendous effort trying to loosely couple the data management and data deployment in e-Learning envi- ronments. This paper presents a design of such a architecture which consists of three main pieces: (1) Global Repository, (2) Repository Manager and (3) Web Deployer. The architecture ensures scalability, interoperability and service composition for an enterprise e-Learning environment. The Global Repository consists of a suite of services that actually manage all the assets of the e- Learning environment. The Repository Manager is a data management tool which allows the maintenance of all assets from a desktop application. The Web Deployer tool actually creates e-Learning environments by using assets from the Global Repository. The overall architecture is Service Oriented such that each service publishes its functionality in a standardized way letting other ser- vices to access and use the functionality in a flexible manner. 1 Introduction Enhancing on-line environments become more and more evident in almost all existing systems. One important approach is to use a recommender system for students. This is one important way of upgrading a traditional e-Learning platform. In this way, e- learning becomes the way to empower a workforce with the skills and knowledge it needs. So far, traditional e-learning systems were developed in the means of static software applications, lacking in educational multimedia environments and persona- lized capabilities and without any interest given to the real users input and feedback [1, 2]. Large amount of hypermedia may be accessed using an e-Learning platform thus leading to large amounts of data regarding user behavior. This data may be used for intelligent user profiling, content reaching and classification, personalized intelligent interface. This paper presents a process and the outcome of our effort in developing a rec- ommendation mechanism for students that run along an e-Learning environment. The content of the e-Learning platform is centrally administered and is supposed to be custom structured. An e-Learning infrastructure needs to be set up such that discip- lines and associated materials are presented in a structured way. The platform is sup- posed to have the capability of capturing and saving user’s performed activities. Burdescu D., MihÄ ˇ Cescu M., Ionaŧcu C. and Logofatu B. Design of a Service-Oriented e-Learning Environment. DOI: 10.5220/0004465700980115 In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Enterprise Systems and Technology (I-WEST 2010), pages 98-115 ISBN: 978-989-8425-44-7 Copyright c  2010 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved