A layered approach towards domain authoring support

This paper presents an approach to authoring support for Web courseware based on a layered ontological paradigm. The ontology-based layers in the courseware authoring architecture serve as a basis for formal semantics and reasoning support in performing generic authoring tasks. This approach represents an extension of our knowledge classification and indexing mechanism from a previously developed system, AIMS, aimed at supporting students while completing learning tasks in a Web-based learning/training environment. We propose the addition of two vertical layers in the system architecture, Author assisting layer and Operational layer, with the role of facilitating the creation of the ontological layers (Course ontology and Domain ontology) and of the educational metadata layer. Here we focus on the domain ontology creation process, together with the support that the additional layers can provide within this process. We exemplify our method by presenting a set of generic tasks related to concept-based domain authoring and their ontological support