The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of instructional materials in teaching and learning biology in the Colleges of Education in the Central Region of Ghana. Qualitatively, a case study research design was selected for the study. The population of the study consists of three Biology tutors in the three Colleges of Education in the Central Region. The purposive sampling technique was chosen to select all the three colleges and three Biology tutors for the study. The interview guide was the main instrument for the data collection. Data were analysed using the interpretative technique based on the themes arrived at during the data collection from the respondents. The study concluded that instructional materials boast students' cognitive abilities and arouse their interest in the lesson by helping them to reason critically during teaching and learning. The study also revealed that the competencies level of tutors helps them in the assessment of the subject, selecting relevant materials for each concept. Their pedagogical skills depend on their competencies in the classroom instructions. The study also concluded that a good presentation of a lesson has a substantial impact on teaching and learning situations, as well as the vast amount of information available to students, to supplement their instruction and the principles for appropriate use of instructional materials. It is recommended that professional development should be organised for the Biology tutors in their respective colleges to have competencies in using relevant instructional materials in assessing students in Biology lessons. It is also recommended that Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (G-TEC), National Teaching Council (NTC), and universities should collaborate with the colleges to organise workshops and seminars for tutors teaching Biology to update their knowledge in the use of digital instructional materials in lesson presentation.

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The advancement of large scale computing (LSC) has been driven not only by the continuous improvement in hardware infrastructures but also by the development of software paradigms including the introduction of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Grid computing is one area of LSC that has seen a focus in the attempt to infuse SOA technology to implement grid services. The decomposition of applications into services is the de-facto in implementing SOA with technologies like Web Services, enabling the implementation at the application layer in a distributed system. Thus, enabling interoperability and maintaining application independence from the network infrastructure. However, this requires a more practical definition of compatibility models that interact at the application layer with grid services. To optimise the integration of SOA on the grid, it is important to indentify the quality factors associated with the application layer services which can be merged into a framework with application layer specific QoS factors to discover and schedule jobs and services.