Enhancing m-learning using GridFS for storing and streaming digital content

Mobile devices transformed the way students access shared knowledge today. The initiative described through the usage of mobile technologies for learning purposes is called mobile learning or m-learning. It is a promising platform because it is learner-centred, enhances collaboration and flexibility of the learning process and enables students with physical disabilities to reach educational material. The platform offers not only the exposure of educational material from teachers to the students, but also utilizes the other way-students are now in a position to create educational material and share and discuss it with teachers and other students. The platform is suitable for traditional learning, lifelong learning, practical knowledge sharing and has many other applications. However, during experimental usage of a simple m-learning platform, content management issue arose-the process of expanding the storage was difficult and time consuming. Adding new capacity to the storage would not solve this issue permanently, because new content would eventually trigger the issue again. It was necessary to create an architectural change to solve the problem permanently. This paper describes the change of the underlying architecture of the information system and proposes the usage of MongoDB NoSQL database system and its GridFS specification for digital content management.