Implementation of Knowledge Domain Ontology to Management of Educational Content
Author(s):
Nikolai Gorbatchev (presenting / submitting) Iouri Zagoumennov
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
06. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Format:
Paper

Session Information

06 SES 10 A, Supporting the Sharing of Knowledge and Educational Resources

Paper Session

Time:
2015-09-10
15:30-17:00
Room:
104.Oktatóterem [C]
Chair:
Petra Grell

Contribution

This paper is dedicated to practice of references to external open educational resources (OER) included into electronic courses systematization.

Research question is if it possible to manage the multilingual online courses with integrated references to OER to keep the OER up-to-date.  Which technology may be implemented?

Objective of this paper is based on availability of high quality OER, which makes possible to construct the electronic course using just references to outer resources in many European languages. This becomes very topical constructing international curriculum using distant learning (for example, under Erasmus + projects, double diplomas and other cooperation programs). This poses several challenges that form the subject for research and practice of integration of OER into learning management system (LMS) in universities:

-          Integration of OER in different languages into learning management system of universities.

-          Updating of integrated OER promptly, if they appear not up to date.

-          Revising of annotated OER in case of revisions added to curriculum outcomes.

-          Changes to be added into e-courses in case of tutor replacement.

One of prospective solution of these issues is research and development of knowledge domain ontology and its application  to management of OER within the LMS.

Conceptual framework of this paper is based on current approaches to creation, implementation of knowledge domain ontology to managing the educational content, including collaborative models (MOOC, educational communities’ collaboration etc.). Management of educational content means collection of information from different resources (including multi-language) and its publication in one or more electronic courses. These courses may be available to one or many educational audiences. Open educational resources are disseminated by electronic means in many languages, and authors of electronic courses also become information managers. Creation of taxonomy of MOOC and its integration into knowledge domain ontology is prospective technology for educational information managers.

This technology was approbated for managing the educational content by MESI University in Minsk (Belarus) for managing electronic courses. All these courses include annotated references to external open educational resources. Main dilemmas of creation taxonomies and their integration into university knowledge domain ontology are the following:

-          Simplicity of creation and management versus multi-linguicism in order to support high-quality open knowledge sources in languages other than Russian and English [original illustration is available].

-          Correlation with Russian educational standards requirements (more limited and rarely updated) versus interdisciplinary outcomes which are more dynamic, but more complicated for management [original illustration is available]

Personal authorship for electronic courses versus collaborative (modeling the knowledge domain include relations between experts and terms of taxonomy, however in collaborative networking these relations become difficult to manage) [original illustration is available]

Method

Research, implementation and development of knowledge domain ontology to management of educational content and external OERs in MESI University included several stages (starting from 2000): - Research and development of taxonomies. Taxonomy allows for classification of knowledge field of electronic courses. Taxonomy provides acceptable productivity to management of educational content within the electronic courses of the university [original illustration is available]. Taxonomy also became an information resource itself, because it was implemented for managing the courses’ glossaries. - Integration of multiple taxonomies into unified university taxonomy allowed for programming interdisciplinary references between various courses, authors and faculties. Browsing the unified taxonomy makes possible to review the development of terms through general and specialized curriculum disciplines [original illustration is available]. - Interaction with different business processes (college courses, university courses, post-graduate courses, short-term courses). Electronic courses may be modified for using in different educational projects. For some narrow courses information may be too specific or too detailed. Specific taxonomies were created for managing the content for these cases. - Implementation of taxonomy to annotation of OERs, which were integrated into electronic courses. This made it possible to manage the external knowledge sources [original illustration is available]. - Creation of ontology for limited knowledge domain (economics). Available taxonomies simplified the process of creation of ontology for knowledge domain of economics. At the research stage the terms of taxonomies were coordinated with experts, authors and referrers of electronic courses. - Implementation of ontology. Ontology was used for managing the electronic courses and OERs. Multimedia materials were fragmented to simplify the management using terms of ontology. Ontology was used to create the collectively created courses. - Development of ontology. Current stage of ontology development is facing the dilemma: Russian educational standards requirements (more limited and rarely updated) versus interdisciplinary outcomes (more dynamic, but more complicated for management). - Further research. One of MOOC under our development now is sponsored by Erasmus + project is “Environmental Management in EU”. This is an interdisciplinary field of study with various high-quality OERs. Our idea is to implement ontology to manage the content, authors and referrers in different European languages within this course. [original illustration is available]

Expected Outcomes

This paper describes methods of updating of educational content using knowledge domain model in a form of ontology. Methods of managing the prospective information resources of university, that appear as the result of personal and collaborative work of students and tutors with external knowledge sources applying contemporary information technologies are suggested. Suggested methods of management of various knowledge sources (internal and external) were approbated for management of electronic courses in MESI University in Minsk. Current research is related to implementation of knowledge ontology to management of multi-language MOOC.

References

Garrot T. (2003) et. ot., Un marcoteóricopara la economía del e-learning // Revista de Univestidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento, Vol. 5, n.º 1, с. 57-71 Forecast (2008), The US Market for Learning Technology Products and Services: 2008-2013 Forecast and Analysis, Ambient Insight, LLC. Available at: www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/ AmbientInsight_US_2008-2013_LearningTechnologyMarket_ExecutiveOverview.pdf [Accessed: 21.10.2014] Gorbachev N. and Greenberg A. University Knowledge Domain Application for Educational Content Updating. // Economics, Statistics, Informatics. – 2010. – Vol. 3. pp. 141 – 147.

Author Information

Nikolai Gorbatchev (presenting / submitting)
MESI University
Minsk Branch of MESI
Minsk
Iouri Zagoumennov
MESI University, Belarus

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