1.1. Problem Statement

The general problems to be addressed by the EClass project are the following:

  1. to provide a reliable and easy to use software tool that allows teachers and students to collaborate on lectures electronically in a way comparable to physical media such as whiteboards

  2. to provide a way for students and instructors to draw on lectures, ask questions, and gauge the difficulty of the lecture

  3. to provide a way for teachers to interact with students, create questions, and conduct polls
While these problems have been solved by a number of commercially available and public domain products, the EClass tool provides a solution with certain functional improvements over existing tools. Specific problem areas are the following:

  1. a way for teachers to collapse/expand on certain topics while preserving layers

  2. providing a tool for students and teachers to gauge the difficulty and understanding of the lecture

  3. a way to draw on lectures and save lectures for future viewing

The EClass project addresses the requirements of a particular customer. This customer needs a tool with a collection of features not available in any single existing tool. This aspect of the problem is one of combining a set of existing features in a way that the features have yet to be combined in another product.

In addition to the development of functioning software, the EClass project focuses on two additional problems not addressed in commercial tools:

  1. multiple user modes where the teacher can allow a student all capabilities of the software, permission to draw on their own screen, or total lockdown mode where students can only watch the lecturee





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