Design and Implementation of a Virtual Calculation Centre (VCC) for Engineering Students

Abstract

Most of the academic institutions in all over the world provide their attendees with databases where courses and other materials could be uploaded, downloaded and checked by the faculty and students. Those materials are mostly PDF files, MS Word files, MS power point presentations or downloadable computer programs. Even though those databases are very beneficial, they need to be improved to meet the studentsâ?? needs, especially in engineering faculties where students may need thermo-physical properties of some substances, charts, diagrams, conversion factors and so forth. In addition, many students see it cumbersome downloading and installing a computer program that they do not need often in their studies. As an attempt to satisfy the academic community needs in the faculty of Engineering in Abou Bekr Belkaid University (Tlemcen, Algeria), we had to devise some Web technologies and techniques to design an interactive virtual space wherein many engineering-related Web applications are accessible on-line. Students and professors can access on-line to properties of many substances, convert physical quantities from and into a variety of units, exploit computer programs on-line without installing them, generate tables and charts, and also, they can use diagrams on-line by means of the mouse. The set of those applications is called a Virtual Calculation Center. This paper goes through the different services that could be implemented in a Virtual Calculation Center, and describes the techniques and technologies used to build those applications.