DEPLOYING NEW SERVICES IN THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS ELEARNING PLATFORM - OUR EXPERIENCES

Abstract

The eClass eLearning Platform (eClass) is the main educational tool of the Open University of Cyprus (OUC), used for facilitating online teaching and learning. Selecting and deploying the best alternative among different candidate services is a major challenge that requires in depth knowledge of the educational process, educators and students needs and all the available solutions. The outcome of this procedure is the introduction of a service that is integrated into eClass. The scope of this paper is to describe and elaborate on the procedure used for the selection and deployment of new services in eClass. Authors provide a description of eClass followed by an analysis of the procedure used to introduce a new service. Next, we report on the deployment phases and challenges faced during each step. Specific project implementations are presented for demonstrating the eClass comp