From a Link Semantic to Semantic Links - Building Context in Educational Hypermedia

Modularization and granulation are key concepts in educational content management, whereas teaching, learning and understanding require a discourse within thematic contexts. Even though hyperlinks and semantically typed references provide the context building blocks of hypermedia systems, elaborate concepts to derive, manage and propagate such relations between content objects are not around at present. Based on Semantic Web standards, this paper makes several contributions to content enrichment. Work starts from harvesting multimedia annotations in class-room recordings, and proceeds to deriving a dense educational semantic net between eLearning Objects decorated with extended LOM relations. Special focus is drawn on the processing of recorded speech and on an Ontological Evaluation Layer that autonomously derives meaningful inter-object relations. Further on, a semantic representation of hyperlinks is developed and elaborated to the concept of semantic link contexts, an approach to manage a coherent rhetoric of linking. These solutions have been implemented in the Hypermedia Learning Objects System (hylOs), our eLearning content management system. hylOs is built upon the more general Media Information Repository (MIR) and the MIR adaptive context linking environment (MIRaCLE), its linking extension. MIR is an open system supporting the standards XML and JNDI. hylOs benefits from configurable information structures, sophisticated access logic and high-level authoring tools like the WYSIWYG XML editor and its Instructional Designer.Comment: Summary of several conference article

Hypermedia Learning Objects System - On the Way to a Semantic Educational Web

While eLearning systems become more and more popular in daily education, available applications lack opportunities to structure, annotate and manage their contents in a high-level fashion. General efforts to improve these deficits are taken by initiatives to define rich meta data sets and a semanticWeb layer. In the present paper we introduce Hylos, an online learning system. Hylos is based on a cellular eLearning Object (ELO) information model encapsulating meta data conforming to the LOM standard. Content management is provisioned on this semantic meta data level and allows for variable, dynamically adaptable access structures. Context aware multifunctional links permit a systematic navigation depending on the learners and didactic needs, thereby exploring the capabilities of the semantic web. Hylos is built upon the more general Multimedia Information Repository (MIR) and the MIR adaptive context linking environment (MIRaCLE), its linking extension. MIR is an open system supporting the standards XML, Corba and JNDI. Hylos benefits from manageable information structures, sophisticated access logic and high-level authoring tools like the ELO editor responsible for the semi-manual creation of meta data and WYSIWYG like content editing.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

Sharing Linkable Learning Objects with the use of Metadata and a Taxonomy Assistant for Categorization

In this work, a re-design of the Moodledata module functionalities is presented to share learning objects between e-learning content platforms, e.g., Moodle and G-Lorep, in a linkable object format. The e-learning courses content of the Drupal-based Content Management System G-Lorep for academic learning is exchanged designing an object incorporating metadata to support the reuse and the classification in its context. In such an Artificial Intelligence environment, the exchange of Linkable Learning Objects can be used for dialogue between Learning Systems to obtain information, especially with the use of semantic or structural similarity measures to enhance the existent Taxonomy Assistant for advanced automated classification

SWA-KMDLS: An Enhanced e-Learning Management System Using Semantic Web and Knowledge Management Technology

In this era of knowledge economy in which knowledge have become the most precious resource, surveys have shown that e-Learning has been on the increasing trend in various organizations including, among others, education and corporate. The use of e-Learning is not only aim to acquire knowledge but also to maintain competitiveness and advantages for individuals or organizations. However, the early promise of e-Learning has yet to be fully realized, as it has been no more than a handout being published online, coupled with simple multiple-choice quizzes. The emerging of e-Learning 2.0 that is empowered by Web 2.0 technology still hardly overcome common problem such as information overload and poor content aggregation in a highly increasing number of learning objects in an e-Learning Management System (LMS) environment. The aim of this research study is to exploit the Semantic Web (SW) and Knowledge Management (KM) technology; the two emerging and promising technology to enhance the existing LMS. The proposed system is named as Semantic Web Aware-Knowledge Management Driven e-Learning System (SWA-KMDLS). An Ontology approach that is the backbone of SW and KM is introduced for managing knowledge especially from learning object and developing automated question answering system (Aquas) with expert locator in SWA-KMDLS. The METHONTOLOGY methodology is selected to develop the Ontology in this research work. The potential of SW and KM technology is identified in this research finding which will benefit e-Learning developer to develop e-Learning system especially with social constructivist pedagogical approach from the point of view of KM framework and SW environment. The (semi-) automatic ontological knowledge base construction system (SAOKBCS) has contributed to knowledge extraction from learning object semiautomatically whilst the Aquas with expert locator has facilitated knowledge retrieval that encourages knowledge sharing in e-Learning environment. The experiment conducted has shown that the SAOKBCS can extract concept that is the main component of Ontology from text learning object with precision of 86.67%, thus saving the expert time and effort to build Ontology manually. Additionally the experiment on Aquas has shown that more than 80% of users are satisfied with answers provided by the system. The expert locator framework can also improve the performance of Aquas in the future usage. Keywords: semantic web aware – knowledge e-Learning Management System (SWAKMDLS), semi-automatic ontological knowledge base construction system (SAOKBCS), automated question answering system (Aquas), Ontology, expert locator

Promoting accessibility by using metadata in the framework of a semantic-web driven CMS

Web content accessibility for impaired people has been mainly addressed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the W3C Consortium. Those guidelines have proved to be good diagnostic means for testing accessibility for different types of impairments, as well as for guiding the development of accessible content. A further step would be to promote discovery of material having appropriate accessibility support, as well as the adjustment of control and display of resources to meet user accessibility needs and preferences [5]. The last two challenges have been addressed by the IMS Global Learning Consortium in the IMS-AccessForAll (ACCMD) and the IMS Learner Information Profile (ACCLIP) specifications. Although IMS has approached both goals in a learning framework, both accessibility specifications pay a special attention to impaired users’ needs. As a first step, in this paper we survey how far IMS accessibility specifications cover WCAG, and discuss the convenience of extending it to the whole WAI guidelines. Secondly, we argue how accessibility could be considered as a key issue for promoting reusability. We continue explaining why using a semantic framework (such as the MPEG-7 semantic tool, RDF or OWL) for describing textual and contextual information in a standardized manner could promote both, accessibility and reusability. Finally, we explain how some accessibility issues have been already addressed by XimetriX’s ximDEX, a semantic-web Content Management System (CMS). We conclude proposing a plan to better integrate the accessibility specifications and contextual description tools into that CMS

The Knowledge Life Cycle for e-learning

In this paper, we examine the semantic aspects of e-learning from both pedagogical and technological points of view. We suggest that if semantics are to fulfil their potential in the learning domain then a paradigm shift in perspective is necessary, from information-based content delivery to knowledge-based collaborative learning services. We propose a semantics driven Knowledge Life Cycle that characterises the key phases in managing semantics and knowledge, show how this can be applied to the learning domain and demonstrate the value of semantics via an example of knowledge reuse in learning assessment management