Design and Development of a Web-Based Interactive Software Tool for Teaching Operating Systems

Operating Systems (OS) is an important and mandatory discipline in many Computer Science, Information Systems and Computer Engineering curricula. Some of its topics require a careful and detailed explanation from the instructor as they often involve theoretical concepts and somewhat complex mechanisms, demanding a certain degree of abstraction from the students if they are to gain a full understanding. In this paper an overview of an interactive e-learning and web-based software tool is provided, which has been designed and developed for undergraduate university students of the Department of Applied Informatics in Management and Economy, Technological Educational Institute of Messolonghi, in Messolonghi, Greece. The aim of this software development was the self learning promotion related to memory management operations and especially the page replacement algorithms operation to be used in everyday OS classrooms. Thus undergraduate students can easily explore the operations of those algorithms through an interaction with the software. More specifically, students can explore each algorithm's mechanism separately and learn from their mistakes as shown automatically by the software in real time. All students' performances are stored in a database. This paper also proposes a study plan to examine the intention of students to use the software in their learning through a survey of a sample of undergraduates. The software does not intend to render obsolete or replace existing pedagogical approaches but instead will complement the existing teaching and learning methods of Operating Systems. (Contains 10 figures.)