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An Offline Educational Resources Access System for the Galapagos Islands

Abstract:

The lack of Internet access increases the digital divide in the educational sector of developing countries, specifically in marginal and remote sectors, limiting universal access to Information and Communications Technology (ICT). This research aims to present a local educational resources access system for improving the Internet browsing experience, enhancing the user learning process (i.e., students, teachers, and administrative personnel) in the distance learning education system. Thus, this solution reduces the access time to digital content and broadband data consumption based on a low-cost web technology solution, affording two Internet browsing modes when there is a low or null Internet connection in the last mile. This proposal combines a multipurpose mini local server with a Learning Management System (LMS) platform of a higher education institution on the Internet, distributing educational resources (i.e., open e-books, videos, audios, images, among others) through secondary Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). Besides, the solution uses the existing small-scale Local Area Network (LAN) infrastructure available in a remote associate center in the Galapagos Islands. Finally, technical results submit the access system performance after the pilot test in the second term of an academic period (October 2019 - February 2020). The information provides evidence of the cached requests made by the devices (i.e., desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, or tablet) connected to the network.