Mobile applications on virtual university

For two years, the authors have been analysing the research interests of general computer scientists and estimating the educational capabilities of a virtual university (VU) in the future, in cooperation with the United Nations University. Over the past several years, the members of the project have concentrated on researching the most effective teaching methods for distance learning. In this paper, the system components of the VU for mobile users are focused on. Although CAI software was well-researched in the past, people are just in the process of expanding their capability to fit a networked society in the next generation, and most people take it for granted to have a fast Internet connection. However, the VU is planned so that every single individual can access, start, stop and resume his/her study even with a slow connection. Because the VU is mainly targeting the developing countries, the project will be very challenging even for people who have already developed applications for mobile users. In the developing countries, network resources are very limited, and special efforts are needed to fit the environment. For example, the first author is modifying his own search engine for the VU. Some members are researching the teaching tools for the virtual classroom, while others are studying graphics transfer over limited-bandwidth networks