Title: E-learning and educational data mining in cloud computing: an overview

Authors: Alberto Fernández; Daniel Peralta; José Manuel Benítez; Francisco Herrera

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, University of Jaén, 23071, Jaén, Spain ' Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, CITIC-UGR (Research Center on Information and Communications Technology), University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain ' Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, CITIC-UGR (Research Center on Information and Communications Technology), University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain ' Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, CITIC-UGR (Research Center on Information and Communications Technology), University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

Abstract: E-learning is related to virtualised distance learning by means of electronic communication mechanisms, using its functionality as a support in the process of teaching-learning. When the learning process becomes computerised, educational data mining employs the information generated from the electronic sources to enrich the learning model for academic purposes. To provide support to e-learning systems, cloud computing is set as a natural platform, as it can be dynamically adapted by presenting a scalable system for the changing necessities of the computer resources over time. It also eases the implementation of data mining techniques to work in a distributed scenario, regarding the large databases generated from e-learning. We give an overview of the current state of the structure of cloud computing, and we provide details of the most common infrastructures that have been developed for such a system. We also present some examples of e-learning approaches for cloud computing, and finally, we discuss the suitability of this environment for educational data mining, suggesting the migration of this approach to this computational scenario.

Keywords: e-learning; educational data mining; EDM; cloud computing; big data; MapReduce; Hadoop; Not Only SQL; NOSQL; electronic learning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLT.2014.062447

International Journal of Learning Technology, 2014 Vol.9 No.1, pp.25 - 52

Published online: 12 Jul 2014 *

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