A lightweight e-learning system for algorithms and data structures

Abstract

We present webAD, a web-based e-learning platform for the visualization of algorithms and data structures. It follows a light-weight server-less implementation paradigm and pursues a minimalistic vision: no installation or configuration effort, multi device support, clear structure of didactic content and simple extensibility for developers. Compared to other visualization tools for algorithms and data structures webAD puts a high value on an innovative flexible tape-recorder mechanism. Based purely on HTML5 and JavaScript with the smallest usage of external libraries it is designed according to the Model-View-Controller architectural pattern and works as a fat client. A thorough analysis of the system in respect to usability and extensibility is performed and findings and recommendations are critically discussed.