Using WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource File) for client device detection and CMS (Content Management System) on m-learning development

Abstract

Nowdays, most of the existing learning content has been designed for desktop computers and is not suitable for mobile devices with limited resources and computing capabilities. The main problem is that the screen size of mobile devices (cell phone, smart phone or PDA) is smaller than the screen size of desktop devices (personal computer or laptop). Therefore, we need to create a customized presentation for both types of devices to make learner feel comfortable when they learn. This paper presents an architecture to provide a good adaptation results for both types of devices. The architecture consists of two parts, the detection engine and the adaptation engine. The detection engine is responsible for detecting the client device based on devices capabilities provided by WURFL (user-agent, screen size, etc) and the adaptation engine is responsible for providing layout adaptation based on the results of detection and the requested content. The adapted content will be sent to the client by the server. Finally, the architecture has been successfully implemented in a website called KSB (Kasih Sayang Bunda) and also the CMS for managing articles. The system can also be continually updated to provide a good adaptation in the future. Key words: M-learning , WURFL, User-agent, Adaptation, CMS.