Online Interactive Platform For BULC

Abstract

Due to encompassing speed of Information and communication technologies (ICT) and its advantages, most of the educational institutions utilizing ICTs for communication and interaction among stakeholders. Lack of appropriate online interaction platform was observed by most of teachers, students and us during the four years of study here at Bahria University Lahore Campus (BULC). It was also demand of visiting faculty members to have platform to communicate the students remotely. Although most of the teachers and students are using different social media channels at their own choice like WhatsApp, Facebook and Google groups etc. There is a need of an effective web-based platform for effective synchronous and asynchronous interaction and communication among these stakeholders. In our final year project, we tried to develop Online University Interaction Platform (OUIP) for BULC using incremental development methodology. It is based on PHP language using WAMP Server as a local host for executing this platform. With the help of this platform, students and teachers can exchange information asynchronously through notifications and messages. Moreover, teacher can interact with students synchronously through live chat, virtual classroom and discussion board. This application will be useful for students, teachers and management of the campus. We recommend integrating proposed platform with CMS of Bahria University as an enhancement