The document describes a proposed web-based virtual lecturer system that aims to help lecturers discharge their duties remotely. Key points: 1. The system would allow lecturers to upload course materials, tutorials, student results, project topics and more to support remote teaching. 2. It is intended to help address issues like large student enrollments straining teacher-student ratios by giving lecturers an online presence. 3. The proposed system would have sections for lecturers, students, and an administrator, and store information like user data, curricula, and course materials in a central database.

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Virtual Lecturer: Web-based Application System to
discharge Teachers Roles in Schools and Colleges
Adetoba Bolaji Tiwalola
Department of Computer Tech, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria tiwabji@yahoo.com
Lawal Olawale N.
Department of Computer Tech, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria kingwales@gmail.com
Yekini Nureni Asafe
Department of Computer Tech, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria engryekini@yahoo.com
Abstract: A virtual lecturer system is a welcome idea in this era of information explosion, where information
communication technology has become a global tool and strategy towards enhancing efficiency in every area
of human endeavors. This paper is focus on integration of ICT in education with particular reference to use
of ICT tools to discharge role of teachers in higher institutions of learning. We proposed a model, design and
implement a prototype of web-based application system aka virtual lecturer through which lecturer can
discharge his or her duties virtually. We are of the opinion that implementation of this work will be of
immense benefit to lecturers (teachers), students and school system at large.
Keywords: education, lecturer. ICT, virtual lecturer, web-based application, teachers
I. Introduction
1.1 General Introduction
In this era of information explosion, where information communication technology has become a global tool
and strategy towards enhancing efficiency in every area of human endeavors, there is no doubt that ICT illiterate is
complete out of global happening.
The field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) combines science and technology. It includes the
full range of computer hardware and software, telecommunication and cell phones, the Internet and Web, wired and
wireless networks, digital still and video cameras, robotics, and so on. It includes the field of Computer and
Information Science and a huge and rapidly growing knowledge base that is being developed by practitioners and
researchers. ICT has proven to be a valuable aid to solving problems and accomplishing tasks in business, industry,
government, education, and many other human endeavors David M (2005).
The important of ICT in education cut across every areas of education sectors. Within a very short time, ICTs have
become one of the basic building blocks of modern society. Many countries now regard understanding ICT and
mastering the basic skills and concepts of ICT as part of the core of education, alongside reading, writing and
numeracy. However, there appears to be a misconception that ICTs generally refers to „computers and computing
related activities‟. This is fortunately not the case, although computers and their application play a significant role in
modern information management, other technologies and/or systems also comprise of the phenomenon that is
commonly regarded as ICTs. Daniels (2002)
In the 80‟s the term „computers‟ was replaced by „IT‟ (information technology) signifying a shift of focus from
computing technology to the capacity to store and retrieve information, this was followed by the introduction of the
term „ICT‟ (information and communication technology) around 1992, when e-mail started to become available to
the general public Pelgrum and Law (2003).
ICTs cover Internet service provision, telecommunications equipment and services, information technology
equipment and services, media and broadcasting, libraries and documentation centers, commercial information
providers, network-based information services, and other related information and communication activities.
Information and communication technology (ICT) may also be regarded as the combination of „Informatics
technology‟ with other related technology, specifically communication technology. UNESCO (2002)
The various kinds of ICT products available and having relevance to education, such as teleconferencing, email,
audio conferencing, television lessons, radio broadcasts, interactive radio counseling, interactive voice response

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system, audiocassettes and CD ROMs etc. have been used in education for different purposes (Sharma, 2003;
Sanyal, 2001; Bhattacharya and Sharma, 2007).
The field of education has been affected by ICTs, which have undoubtedly affected teaching, learning, and research
(Yusuf, 2005).
A great deal of research has proven the benefits to the quality of education through ICT (Al-Ansari, 2006). ICTs
have the potential to innovate, accelerate, enrich, and deepen skills, to motivate and engage students, to help relate
school experience to work practices, create economic viability for tomorrow's workers, as well as strengthening
teaching and helping schools change (Davis and Tearle, 1999; Lemke and Coughlin, 1998).
The benefits of ICT will be maximized when confident teachers are willing to explore new opportunities for
changing their classroom practices by using ICT Harris (2002). The use of ICT will not only enhance learning
environments but also prepare next generation for future lives and careers (Wheeler, 2001).
There is a consensus that use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will enhance the quality of
teaching and learning process (Paul, 2002; Papert, 1987; Voogt & Pelgrum, 2005; Watson, 2001; Well-Strand,
1991).
ICTs greatly facilitate the acquisition and absorption of knowledge, offering developing countries unprecedented
opportunities to enhance educational systems. Tinio, (2002).
If ICT is adopted and applied accordingly in schools and colleges the following comparative advantages can be
archived enhance; (Syed Noor-Ul-Amin n.d).
 teaching learning process;
 quality and accessibility of education;
 learning motivation
 improve and comfortable learning environment
 enhance the scholastic performance.
The main focus of this research work is on propose of conceptual framework and design of a web-based application
program (virtual lecturer) that can be used by lecturers to discharge some of his/her duties in an educational
environment.
The documentation of this research write-up is organized as follows; in section II, literature survey which include
the review of some related works in area of application of ICT in education. In Section III, we presents the research
methodology and system design which include model of the propose system and its architecture, modes of
operations which include how it various components will work together to archive the set objective. Section IV,
presents the design and implementation of the system. And finally in section V, we present the recommendation,
conclusion and highlight some future works required in design and implementation of Virtual Lecturers.
1.2 Significance of the study
If the research work is completed, and implemented; time will be freed up in class for discussion, reflection and
learning conversations. Additionally it will greatly facilitate the acquisition and absorption of knowledge, offering
developing countries unprecedented opportunities to enhance educational systems.
1.3 Problem Statement
 The burden of Lecturer getting access to the students and students getting access to the lecturer is becoming
a burden in this era of geometrical increases in enrolment of students especially in public institutions of
learning where faculty members are below teacher to student‟s ratio. If this research work is implemented
and it could alleviate the problem mentioned.
 As a parent and an educator, I have seen that many young learners and lecturers seem to spend a lot of time
with the ICT tools such as computer, mobile phones and internet. When students are given some projects,
they provide information collected from the Internet instead of the textbook. Also references of some
academic papers published in peer review journals and conference proceeding has more of online reference
compared to physical textbook or publications. Consequence to that, it is advisable to integrate ICT into all
aspect of teaching and learning.
 Now that our students are living and learning in a technology-rich world, it is important that we are able to
more critically discuss and evaluate our practice to ensure our students are getting the most from their
online experiences, that they are exploring a whole new array of opportunities for higher-order thinking and
learning, and that we fully understand the real value and impact of what is being learnt.


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1.4 Objectives of This Research Work
 Justify the need & significance of ICT in Education with particular reference to use of Web for discharging
role of a teacher in schools and colleges.
 To proposed model, design and implement a prototype of virtual lecturer system.
 To add a general Teachers/lecturers roles to the system in order to balance the load with the load between
the lecturers and students in teaching, learning and research.
 To enable flexible Flipped Learning.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the study
The scope of this project is on integration of ICT in education system with focus on using of virtual teacher to
discharge role of teachers in higher institution.
II. Literature Survey
2.1. Teaching/Learning Relationships Between Teacher and Students
Lynne Anderson, John Cartafalsa (2010) of National University, USA in their work Virtual Teaching/Learning
Relationships studied factors that impact relationships in both virtual and face-to-face teaching/learning settings. In
their studies they examined relationships of students with lecturer, lecturer with students, and students with students.
The authors in their studies found that interactivity desired by students and faculty alike in learning/teaching
settings.
 In the on campus (face to face) setting, students preferred interaction with fellow students to with the
lecturer.
 In the online (virtual) setting, students preferred interaction to have immediacy, that is, a rapid
response rate. Convincingly, interaction in both face to face and virtual learning settings is desired for
effective learning.
 In the face to face learning setting interaction among students was deemed of special value; and, in the
online learning setting, immediacy of response rate was deemed of special value…albeit student or
lecturer.
2.2. What Students Need to Know and Teachers Should Consider in Exploring the Virtual Classroom
Garry Falloon (2011) in his study exploring the Virtual Classroom, the study explores the affordances and
limitations of an online virtual classroom, Adobe Connect Pro, when used in the learning programmes of two groups
of undergraduate and postgraduate education students. Results indicate that while both groups gained value from
using the classroom, they also found it a completely new environment, and one to which many had trouble
transferring the interaction and communication skills developed in other contexts. The reasons for this related to
three specific areas of knowledge – technical, procedural and operational, that were identified as being critical to
student performance in this environment.
The study suggests that educators and course designers need to embed strategies into their online offerings to enable
students to develop these, if they are to gain substantial benefit from the availability of virtual classrooms.
Additionally, the study identified that when making design decisions about online learning environments, it is very
much a matter of horses for courses when selecting tools for specific purposes. While the virtual classroom proved
useful for developing social connection and a sense of community, it may not be so beneficial for supporting deeper
learning.
2.3. Virtual Pedagogies
Richard Olsen (2011) in his paper title Pedagogies for Contemporary Teaching a model for Collective
Knowledge Construction. The purpose of his paper is to use the Collective Knowledge Construction Model to
identify strategies by which knowledge construction is facilitated when learning online. And, secondly to encourage
teachers, school leaders and other stakeholders to reimagine the pedagogical, technical and contextual consequences
that arise from teaching and learning in technology rich environments.
He highlighted four strategies that influence how we learn and the way we behave online as: Connecting,
Communicating, Collaborating and Learning Collectively. See figure 1, for each of the strategies he discussed
 The distinguishing features of the strategy
 The pedagogical approaches that are suitable for the strategy
 The learning activities
 The strategy challenge educators to rethink

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Figure 1: strategies that influence how we learn and the way we behave online
2.4. Role of Teachers in Schools and Colleges
Harden R.M. and Crosby J. (2000) in the paper entitled: The good teacher is more than a lecturer - the twelve
roles of the teacher classified and discussed the role of teachers. Although their research work use medical education
as a guide but the roles identified and discussed could be extended to all form educations either engineering,
technological, science, accounting, teacher education etc. The roles identified are:
i. Facilitator
ii. Role Model
iii. Information Provider
iv. Resource developer
v. Planner
vi. Assessor
Each of the roles listed is further classified into two, making roles of the teacher twelve as shown in the figure 2.
Figure 2: Role of the Teacher Harden R.M., and Crosby J. (2000)

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III. Research Methodology and Design
3.1. Analysis of the Existing System
The role of lecturer in the higher institutions of learning is very vital administration of school system
since they are the key players in the school functioning system. In Nigeria today people lecturer perform some
of their services through face to face with the students, and other relevant individuals. In Yaba college of
technology which is the case study for this work. Out of six-hundred academic staffs in this foremost institution
in the country only one lecturer has a personal website. We carefully examine this lecturer website
www.engryekini.com and discovered the following: Students can only interact with the students offline,
Students can download tutorials, and roles of teacher is not completely integrated into the system
There is need for every lecturer to have a befitting website through which he or she can discharge his service to
students and other virtually.
3.2. Fact Finding
This is the most important part of any analysis. Indeed, much of analysis is concerned with what fact to
find, how to find them and how to record them for the purpose which it is collected for.
Data Collection Method: The form of data collection method used was an inspections of records related to
curriculums and roles of teachers in higher institution, visitation to lecturer website and interaction with an
experience teacher using Yaba college of technology as a case.
3.3. Propose Model
The system design will be based on the proposed model figure 3, and flowchart figure 4 below.
Figure 3: Proposed System Model

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Figure 4: proposed Flowchart
3.4. User Section
There are three categories of user that can access the system interface by logging to the system and
assigned an access rights.
 Lecturer to be imitated: this is the teachers that perform the following functions; managing students
account, upload courseware, tutorial, students result, project topic, and any other necessary
information, fixed class etc.
 Students: this category of user perform any of the following functions; download courseware, view
lecture schedule, participate in live class, view test, exam or project result, view account, play video
class, post question etc.

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 Administrator: this category of user performs function such as managing system database, maintaining
database etc.
3.5. Database Section
The system (virtual lecturer) will depend on many data that make-up of databases such as: Lecturer
information, Students and other user‟s information‟s, curriculum information‟s, courseware information‟s etc.
This information will be stored in a central location (database through which every user will access them for
execution of one or more tasks.
Figure 5: Database system of the proposed system
IV. Design and Implementation of The System
3.5. Description of the System Components
The virtual lecturer cannot completely replace physical teachers; it is only an updating for technology,
concepts and tools, giving new content, concepts and methods for education, so the roles of physical teachers
cannot be replaced. The proposed virtual lecturer can be divided into the following layers:
 Infrastructure layer is composed of information infrastructure and teaching resources. Information
infrastructure contains Internet/Intranet, system software, information management system and some
common software and hardware; teaching resources is accumulated mainly in traditional teaching model
and distributed in different domain. This layer is located in the lowest level of the system.
 Resource management layer is the key to achieve loose coupling of software resources and hardware
resources. Through integration of virtualization and virtual lecturer scheduling strategy, on-demand free
flow and distribution of information.
 Service Layer this layer provides services that lecturer rendered to students in virtual environment. As is
different from traditional approach users using a software application (virtual lecturer) via the Internet.
3.6. Choice of programming language
The virtual lecturer system needs to effective and efficient. Also it should deliver content at real-time, as
such a robust, efficient and easy to use programming language is required to develop the solution. The choice of
programming language is PHP (Hypertext pre-processor) for server-side scripting, Actionscript and Micormedia-
Flash for media content authoring and Mysql as the back-end database. Also, the above mentioned technologies
are open-source technologies and are available for download for free.
3.7. Input Design
The input design depicts the means in which users in general introduce data to the system for processing.
These are initial part of the graphical user-interface which allows the user to interact with the system without
necessary following a particular order. The user interaction with the system begins with the login form to collect
Database
Users
system

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the user's login credential and validates against the database. The credential are verified and validated by
determining the roles each user can play in session. After a successful access to the system the user is greeted
with a portal which serves as the dashboard. From here, the user can continue interaction with the system based
on the predefined role. New users can find a link to a register and login to the system.
3.8. Database Design
At this stage we assign the space and the character that will be used at the back end of the webpage. The
role of the user was discussed in section 3.3 and each of the users will have a table in the database as follows;
 Admin table: this describes the field and information of administrator that will be stored in the
database.
Field name Field type Field width Comment
Id Integer 5 It is the number that is used to
identify them
User name Var char 30 Name used to identify them
Password Var char 30 Known only to the personnel used
to access the database
First name Var char 30 Personnel‟s surname
Last name Var char 30 Other names of the personnel
e-mail address Var char 30
 Lecturer Table: this describes the field and information of lecturers that will be stored in the
database
Field name Field type Field width Comment
First name Var char 30 Lecturer surname
Last name Var char 30 Given names
Other name Var char 30 Other names
Office Address Var char 100 Office address of the lecturer
User name Var char 30 Name used to identify them
Password Var char 30 Known only to the lecturer used to
access the database
E-mail Var char 45 e-mail address of the student
Sex Var char 8 Either male or female
Date of birth Var char 5 Date of birth for lecturer
Employer Var char 60 Name of school
Picture Blob - Face of the lecturer
Country Var char 15 Country where the school is located
 Students table: this describes the field and information of students or visitor to the website
that will be stored in the database.
Field name Field type Field width Comment
First name Var char 30 Students surname
Last name Var char 30 Given names
Other name Var char 30 Other names
Department Var char 50 Student department
User name Var char 30 Name used to identify them
Password Var char 30 Known only to the student used to
access the database
E-mail Var char 45 e-mail address of the student
Sex Var char 8 Either male or female
Date of birth Var char 5 Date of birth for student

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School name Var char 60 Name of the students institution
Picture Blob - Face of the personnel
Country Var char 15 Country where the school is located
3.9. The Roles perform by users
The input stage allows the users (Students, Lecturers and System-Administrator) to login. New users can
register. Students can download courseware (material such as ebooks, audiobooks, videos, presentations etc), view
lecturer schedule and participate in live classroom. Students can post questions to the lecturers and participate in
forum. Lecturer can upload courseware, schedule class, initiate a class session and respond to questions from the
student.
3.10. Source of input to the system
The major source of input to the system include the mice-for initiating user initiating commands, the
keyboard-for entering data in to the system through the forms provided and the digital camera/microphone for
capturing video and audio data. Below are the screen-shot of interface that support user input.
V. Conclusion
As earlier mentioned, the role of teachers goes beyond teaching and impacting knowledge alone. As the population
of students increases in our institutions of learning so also the number of students to teacher increases. In other for
teachers to overcome several huddles that may arise from this trend, there is need for full integration of ICT into
discharging role of a teacher in school. We proposed a model, design and implement a prototype of web-based
application system aka virtual lecturer through which lecturer can discharge his or her duties virtually.
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