MapleNet - Supercharging Your Distance Education

Distance and asynchronous education are the biggest growth areas in education today. Although the web seems to provide an obvious means to delivering distance education, no one has yet found an implementation that is both comprehensive and simple - until now.

For the past 20 years, innovative educators have made Maple a key part of their curriculum. Now these same educators can revolutionise mathematics distance education with MapleNet™, a complete software solution for offering dynamic, self-paced, asynchronous courses in distance and on-campus education, just released by Waterloo Maple.

The MapleNet suite of software tools allows institutions to create interactive learning applications – called “learning objects” in distance-education parlance – and deliver them over the web. With such learning objects, students can explore mathematical concepts using just a standard browser.

Unlike other web-based mathematics engines, MapleNet is not just raw technology. It provides a top-to-bottom institutional solution through three user-friendly components:

MapleNet Publisher is the component for creating and publishing interactive learning objects. Instructors can create learning objects either as maplets or Java™ applets, then publish them to a web site administered by the MapleNet Server component.

The MapleNet Server manages and delivers the mathematical course content over the web. The Server is equipped with the Maple symbolic software engine, which runs the math computations invoked by students logged in to the system, and a system administration interface, which provides authentication, security, and easy maintenance of even large deployments. The whole system can be installed by an average system administrator in a few hours or less.The MapleNet Client is the component the students see. Students log on to the web site where the instructor has published the learning objects. Using only a web browser, they can run the learning objects in the form of maplets or Java applets. The students don’t even need Maple locally installed to run the them!

These components offer the only fully integrated software solution for distance and asynchronous education.
In designing MapleNet, we assessed the requirements for installation, maintenance, development, publishing, and connecting to existing course management systems, such as Blackboard®, WebCT, and even home-grown systems.

In its brief history, MapleNet has already begun making a difference. Before MapleNet, many instructors were writing learning objects in Java for online courses, which often replicated mathematical capabilities already in Maple. MapleNet is now saving instructors time and multiplying their efforts by tying their learning objects to the Maple computation engine. A few early adopters of MapleNet, including Seton Hall University, Simon Fraser University, and the University of South Carolina are now using MapleNet to create learning objects to enhance a variety of online courses.

MapleNet is now available for various server platforms. Convenient license bundles offer cost-effective ways for institutions to begin building tomorrow’s virtual campus today.

For details and technical specifications on MapleNet, please visit www.maplesoft.com/maplenet. We are also offering online seminars on MapleNet.

To register for a seminar, please contact: education@adeptscience.co.uk.

Article: MapleNet - Supercharging Your Distance Education