An OWL-Based Ontology to Represent Interactions of Students in Educational Virtual Worlds

While several studies in the last decade explore the potential benefits of virtual worlds in education settings, less attention has been given to the research of solutions to help overcome implementation barriers. One of the existing areas of concern is related to the difficulties on the exploitation of data obtained from educational virtual worlds. This paper proposes an OWL-based ontology to address a solution to the problem of inconsistency of databases that record information about student interactions with learning objects within these environments. The steps that have been followed for the development of the ontology are described, guided by Stanford’s 101 model. To discuss the feasibility and exemplify the ontology, an instance of an existing virtual world interaction is presented. The conclusion is that the proposed ontology can be helpful to researchers and development groups as it delivers a reusable model to gather data in a uniform way

Онтології та їх значення для розвитку сучасних інформаційних технологій

В роботі розглядаються онтології з точки зору їхнього місця в розвитку сучасних інформаційних технологій, причини виникнення онтологій, визначення, характеристики, проблеми та напрямки розвитку. Оглянуто приклади застосування онтологій в прикладних задачах в різних галузях інформаційних технологій.В работе рассматриваются онтологии с точки зрения их места в развитии современных информационных технологий, причины возникновения онтологий, определения, характеристики, проблемы и направления развития. Расссмотрены примеры применения онтологий в прикладных задачах в различных направлений информационных технологий.The work considers ontologies from the point of view of their place in the development of modern information technologies, the causes of occurrence of ontologies, definitions, characteristics, problems and directions of development. Examples of application of ontologies in applied problems in different branches of information technologies

Semantic Modelling of Interactive 3D Content with Domain-specific Ontologies

AbstractThe creation of interactive 3D presentations is typically a complex process involving activities related to various aspects of the content such as geometry, structure, space, appearance, logic and behaviour. However, widespread dissemination of interactive 3D content on the web requires flexible and efficient methods of content creation. In this paper, an approach to semantic modelling of 3D content is proposed. The proposed solution enables creation of content components and properties - reflecting different aspects of the content - with domain-specific ontologies and knowledge bases. The use of domain-specific knowledge liberates authors from going into details that are specific to 3D modelling, allows for content representation at different levels of abstraction and permits content creation by domain experts, who are not required to be IT-professionals

Gamification of assembly planning in virtual environment

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of the gamification of virtual assembly planning on the user performance, user experience and engagement. / Design/methodology/approach: A multi-touch table was used to manipulate virtual parts and gamification features were integrated into the virtual assembly environment. An experiment was conducted in two conditions: a gamified and a non-gamified virtual environment. Subjects had to assemble a virtual pump. The user performance was evaluated in terms of the number of errors, the feasibility of the generated assembly sequence and the user feedback. / Findings: The gamification reduced the number of errors and increased the score representing the number of right decisions. The results of the subjective and objective analysis showed that the number of errors decreased with engagement in the gamified assembly. The increase in the overall user experience reduced the number of errors. The subjective evaluation showed a significant difference between the gamified and the non-gamified assembly in terms of the level of engagement, the learning usability and the overall experience. / Research limitations/implications: The effective learning retention after training has not been tested, and longitudinal studies are necessary. The effect of the used gamification elements has been evaluated as a whole; further work could isolate the most beneficial features and add other elements that might be more beneficial for learning. / Originality/value: The research reported in this paper provides valuable insights into the gamification of virtual assembly using a low-cost multi-touch interface. The results are promising for training operators to assemble a product at the design stage

TREE-D-SEEK: A Framework for Retrieving Three-Dimensional Scenes

In this dissertation, a strategy and framework for retrieving 3D scenes is proposed. The strategy is to retrieve 3D scenes based on a unified approach for indexing content from disparate information sources and information levels. The TREE-D-SEEK framework implements the proposed strategy for retrieving 3D scenes and is capable of indexing content from a variety of corpora at distinct information levels. A semantic annotation model for indexing 3D scenes in the TREE-D-SEEK framework is also proposed. The semantic annotation model is based on an ontology for rapid prototyping of 3D virtual worlds. With ongoing improvements in computer hardware and 3D technology, the cost associated with the acquisition, production and deployment of 3D scenes is decreasing. As a consequence, there is a need for efficient 3D retrieval systems for the increasing number of 3D scenes in corpora. An efficient 3D retrieval system provides several benefits such as enhanced sharing and reuse of 3D scenes and 3D content. Existing 3D retrieval systems are closed systems and provide search solutions based on a predefined set of indexing and matching algorithms Existing 3D search systems and search solutions cannot be customized for specific requirements, type of information source and information level. In this research, TREE-D-SEEK—an open, extensible framework for retrieving 3D scenes—is proposed. The TREE-D-SEEK framework is capable of retrieving 3D scenes based on indexing low level content to high-level semantic metadata. The TREE-D-SEEK framework is discussed from a software architecture perspective. The architecture is based on a common process flow derived from indexing disparate information sources. Several indexing and matching algorithms are implemented. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the usability and performance of the framework. Retrieval performance of the framework is evaluated using benchmarks and manually collected corpora. A generic, semantic annotation model is proposed for indexing a 3D scene. The primary objective of using the semantic annotation model in the TREE-D-SEEK framework is to improve retrieval relevance and to support richer queries within a 3D scene. The semantic annotation model is driven by an ontology. The ontology is derived from a 3D rapid prototyping framework. The TREE-D-SEEK framework supports querying by example, keyword based and semantic annotation based query types for retrieving 3D scenes