Variability Management in Software Product Lines Online Learning Applications

Abstract

The process of learning and teaching online learning has undergone many changes in line with technological developments. Education institutions have begun introducing new methods of learning this. However, it needs a huge amount of labor intensive to produce and maintain educational technologies due to its huge size (literacy, vocational education, school education, engineering and medical education) and huge variants (language, dialect). With the growing demand and at the same time would like to reduce the factor of cost, time and effort is long, then the need for an effective solution allowing rapid system development. A Software Product Line (SPL) approach is one of the best methods that can be used to develop an educational software family. This research focuses on core asset by recognizing and representing variability in variability management. The study employed two phases of activities in data gathering, there are filtering out data from secondary sources which detail out the features of e-learning and constructivist learning environment of each Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Second phase involved the use of expert interviews to determine the features of each higher institution elearning and identify Primitive Requirement of Malaysian Higher Education online learning. Commonality and Variability Analysis (CV Analysis) method has been used as identification of commonality and variability. This analysis is to develop a feature model which further helps in visual representation variants requirements and enhance reusability in the context of product line approaches. As a result, there are 20 Primitive Requirements (PR) has been identified and clearly divided into two categories, common and optional. The frequency in each application of online learning is used to determine whether the PR is reusable. The identification and representation will increase the potential for reuse and help in publishing the specific requirements of the application in the development of the product line.