Scaling a mobile tutoring project: strategic interventions in C3TO

Abstract

Scalability is a critical characteristic for successful software solutions - especially networked software and social software. Scalability can be defined as how well the software platform which provided help to primary and secondary school pupils with their mathematics homework. Tutors used traditional workstations and pupils used Mxit on their cell phones. The original implementation of Dr Math was designed for no more than approximately fifty pupils. When Dr Math unexpectedly started receiving queries from hundreds and then thousands of pupils, it was found that the original implementation did not scale. It did not work well when the size of the problem increased. C3TO (Chatter Call Centre/Tutoring Online) is a scalable platform for online, mobile tutoring which solves the problems encountered with the original Dr Math implementation. The need for scalability underpinned the design of C3TO. The features implemented in C3TO which specifically address scalabiity can be divided into three different groups: technical features, tactical features, and strategic features. This paper specifically addresses the strategic interventions found in C3TO