The menu of the mobile app provides the capability to download materials for offline use. This can be re-synchronized each time the user has access to the Internet, but the materials are downloaded in the device so that they can be read offline even without access to the Internet. In order to access the offline mobile app the user has to select the menu option “Offline Use” from the main menu.
When the application launches it will ask the users’ permission to use the storage in the mobile phone in order to store the files that will be downloaded from the server for offline use.
Then the user is asked to choose the language from a menu (Figure 3). The languages appearing in this menu are the languages for which the administrator has uploaded offline materials.
The offline materials are uploaded in the Dedicated Web Application for the offline mobile app. Notice that this is a separate web application that we have implemented distinct from the Sakai LMS tools.
If no languages are available for download in the offline server, then a message will appear that will notify the users.
If there is no Internet connection available then the languages and the parts of the languages that have been already downloaded will be displayed for selection and in the contents area,respectively.
When the network is available, the users can synchronize with the server in case some of the materials have been updated and/or new languages have become available, or simply to view materials available for downloading that they have not downloaded yet in their devices. The synchronization is achieved with the button next to the language selection menu.