Web-course search engine : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Computer Science at Massey University

Abstract

The World Wide Web is an amazing place that people's lives more and more rely on. Especially, for the young generation, they spend a significant amount of their play and study time using the Internet. Many tools have been developed to help the educational users in finding educational resources. These tools include various search engines. Web directories and educational domain gateways. Nevertheless, these systems have many weaknesses that made them unsuitable for the specific search needs of the learners. The research presented in this thesis describes the development of the Web-course search engine, which is a friendly, efficient and accurate helper for the learners to get what they want in the vast Internet ocean. The most attractive feature of this system is that the system uses one universal language, which lets the searchers and the resources "communicate" with each other. Then the learner searchers can find the Web-based educational resources that are most fit to their needs and course providers can provide all necessary information about their courseware. This universal language is one widely acceptable Metadata standard. Following the Metadata standard, the system collects exact information about educational resources, provides adequate search parameters for search and returns evaluative results. By using the Web-course search engine, the learners and the other educational users are able to find useful, valuable and related educational resources more effectively and efficiently. Some improvement suggestions of the search mechanism in the World Wide Web have been brought forward for the future research as a result of this project.