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

Collaborative semantic web browsing with Magpie

Web browsing is often a collaborative activity. Users involved in a joint information gathering exercise will wish to share knowledge about the web pages visited and the contents found. Magpie is a suite of tools supporting the interpretation of web pages and semantically enriched web browsing. By automatically associating an ontology-based semantic layer to web resources, Magpie allows relevant services to be invoked as well as remotely triggered within a standard web browser. In this paper we describe how Magpie trigger services can provide semantic support to collaborative browsing activities

Magpie: towards a semantic web browser

Web browsing involves two tasks: finding the right web page and then making sense of its content. So far, research has focused on supporting the task of finding web resources through ‘standard’ information retrieval mechanisms, or semantics-enhanced search. Much less attention has been paid to the second problem. In this paper we describe Magpie, a tool which supports the interpretation of web pages. Magpie offers complementary knowledge sources, which a reader can call upon to quickly gain access to any background knowledge relevant to a web resource. Magpie automatically associates an ontologybased semantic layer to web resources, allowing relevant services to be invoked within a standard web browser. Hence, Magpie may be seen as a step towards a semantic web browser. The functionality of Magpie is illustrated using examples of how it has been integrated with our lab’s web resources

Knowledge Management for Public Administrations: Technical Realizations of an Enterprise Attention Management System

The improvement of governments’ efficiency has gained great importance and validity especially in the current times of economic downturn. E-Government constitutes the most contemporary techno-managerial proposition in the track of possible interventions. The paper addresses, more specifically, empowerments necessitated by Public Administration (PA) organizations. Anchored on the needs of three real-life cases, the paper describes the conception and the realization of an IT artefact together with its methodological appeals aiming at improving information access and delivery and thus PAs’ decision making capacity. Our proposition constitutes a novel approach for managing users’ attention in knowledge intensive organizations which goes beyond informing a user about changes in relevant information towards proactively supporting the user to react on changes. The approach is based on an expressive attention model, which is realized by combining ECA (Event-Condition-Action) rules with ontologies. The technical realizations described in the paper constitute the underlying infrastructure of an Enterprise Attention Management System

A linked data-driven & service-oriented architecture for sharing educational resources

The two fundamental aims of managing educational resources are to enable resources to be reusable and interoperable and to enable Web-scale sharing of resources across learning communities. Currently, a variety of approaches have been proposed to expose and manage educational resources and their metadata on the Web. These are usually based on heterogeneous metadata standards and schemas, such as IEEE LOM or ADL SCORM, and diverse repository interfaces such as OAI-PMH or SQI. Also, there is still a lack of usage of controlled vocabularies and available data sets that could replace the widespread use of unstructured text for describing resources. On the other hand, the Linked Data approach has proven that it offers a set of successful principles that have the potential to alleviate the aforementioned issues. In this paper, we introduce an architecture and prototype which is fundamentally based on (a) Linked Data principles and (b) Service-orientation to resolve the integration issues for sharing educational resources

empathi: An ontology for Emergency Managing and Planning about Hazard Crisis

In the domain of emergency management during hazard crises, having sufficient situational awareness information is critical. It requires capturing and integrating information from sources such as satellite images, local sensors and social media content generated by local people. A bold obstacle to capturing, representing and integrating such heterogeneous and diverse information is lack of a proper ontology which properly conceptualizes this domain, aggregates and unifies datasets. Thus, in this paper, we introduce empathi ontology which conceptualizes the core concepts concerning with the domain of emergency managing and planning of hazard crises. Although empathi has a coarse-grained view, it considers the necessary concepts and relations being essential in this domain. This ontology is available at https://w3id.org/empathi/

A Semantic Grid Oriented to E-Tourism

With increasing complexity of tourism business models and tasks, there is a clear need of the next generation e-Tourism infrastructure to support flexible automation, integration, computation, storage, and collaboration. Currently several enabling technologies such as semantic Web, Web service, agent and grid computing have been applied in the different e-Tourism applications, however there is no a unified framework to be able to integrate all of them. So this paper presents a promising e-Tourism framework based on emerging semantic grid, in which a number of key design issues are discussed including architecture, ontologies structure, semantic reconciliation, service and resource discovery, role based authorization and intelligent agent. The paper finally provides the implementation of the framework.Comment: 12 PAGES, 7 Figure

Supporting organisational learning: an overview of the ENRICH approach

Traditional training separates learning from the work context in which the newly acquired knowledge is to be applied. This requires the worker themselves to apply imparted theoretical knowledge to knowledge in practice, a process that is grossly inefficient. The ENRICH approach builds on organisational learning theory to intertwine working and learning. The ENRICH methodology incorporates theories of learning at the individual, group and organisational level. Individual level learning is supported through the provision of semantically related resources to support problem reframing and to challenge assumptions. Group learning is supported through the evolution of domain concepts through work documents and representations linked to formal models of group knowledge, and the development of group practices and perspectives through enhanced sharing and collaboration. Organisational learning is supported through exposure to customs and conventions of other groups through shared best practices and knowledge models. The approach is being investigated in a range of industrial settings and applications

Interoperability in IoT through the semantic profiling of objects

The emergence of smarter and broader people-oriented IoT applications and services requires interoperability at both data and knowledge levels. However, although some semantic IoT architectures have been proposed, achieving a high degree of interoperability requires dealing with a sea of non-integrated data, scattered across vertical silos. Also, these architectures do not fit into the machine-to-machine requirements, as data annotation has no knowledge on object interactions behind arriving data. This paper presents a vision of how to overcome these issues. More specifically, the semantic profiling of objects, through CoRE related standards, is envisaged as the key for data integration, allowing more powerful data annotation, validation, and reasoning. These are the key blocks for the development of intelligent applications.Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT) [UID/MULTI/00631/2013