Educational Quality Focus for the Development of Mobile Higher Educational System through Web-Based Technologies
The development of IT, Internet and globalization have brought up major challenges for industrial growth and development of human resources to meet the requirements of any country for its nation-building. These developments have led to drastic shifts in the missions of higher education in the 21st century through web-based technologies. The role of teacher, quality of education (especially higher education) and research needs to be looked with a new dimension and latest tools. World organizations, such as UNESCO, have realized this and have equipped themselves to face these developments for the betterment of society and to come up with sustainable growth.
In convening the World Conference on Higher Education, UNESCO reaffirmed its strong 50-year-old commitment to foster the development of higher education and research. The conference sought to generate a broad debate on higher education to complement other major conferences in the field of education that constitute landmarks in the process of its renewal, notably the World Conference on Education for All (Jomtien, Thailand, 1990), the 45th Session of the International Conference on Education on the Role of Teachers in a Changing World (Geneva, 1996), and the International Conference on Adult Education (Hamburg, 1997). In addition, the conference reiterated the recommendations relating to the opening up of higher education of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century, Learning: The Treasure Within (1996).
The four powerful worldwide changes that have altered the business environment as well as the educational system are: (i) Emergence of global economy, (ii) Transformation of industrial economies, (iii) Transformation of business enterprises, and (iv) Emergence of digital firms.
The world has now become dependent on the web and is going to depend on it in the future. The web has been important, even in education and learning, and its users have been able to search the required content with the help of various search engines. Life-long learning can be made possible as the 'mobile educational systems' have started to emerge. They also promise to bring the concept of anytime and anywhere to reality. But as the human race is moving towards the future, changes are taking place, even in the nature of the web and the devices and formats used. Web-mining has shown ways to cope up with this change. It has helped to find the required information, like shells from the big ocean. But, the need is of 'information pearls' for tomorrow.
The dream of the 'semantic web' is based on the ability for machines to accurately find, read, understand and process data created by different individuals and organizations.
Moreover, the 'educational semantic web' will be made useful, if and only if, the end-user applications become simple enough to support useful learning experiences and activities. Understanding the multi-dimensional quality needs and role of quality in education is very important for the success of any educational system in the era of globalization.
Syllabus Based Web Content Extractor (SBWCE) is being developed using new directions in Syllabus Based Web Content Mining. The output from SBWCE can also be utilized for mobile education systems. This paper discusses education traditions, associated notions of quality, and provides a focus on understanding, monitoring and improving quality of education. It also discusses the effective development of 'mobile higher educational system' with quality through web-based technologies.