Design of a personalized approach for teaching Web-based curriculum in 'data & computer networks

A challenging goal today represents the development of advanced web-based deducational applications, which can offer some (more) amount of interactivity and adaptation. Web-based education can greatly add to the learning experience of students and may also cut back on the amount of administration the lecturer has to do. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the existing possibilities in using the web for the course delivery, and reviews the techniques for using Personalized Systems of Instruction (PSI) in the Web-based course design. The basics of the PSI model are reviewed, a summary of new PSI features, brought by the computer and web-based systems, is provided, and some problems associated with '21(st) century PSI' are discussed. In this context, the customization ap roach, based on the model-view-controller architecture, was used for designing a personalized web-based instruction system. The paper also explores some of the above items within a real setting. One example is the development of an integrated lecture/tutorial/lab course in 'Communications Networks', extended also for 'Computer Networks' modules. Both medules support theory, applications and assessment within a real-life context. This is also an example for how to develop and use jointly some high-interactive computer-based modules for teaching data & computer networks.