Describing and Connecting Educational Objects: an Ontology for the Erickson e-Value Project
Author(s):
Chiara Ravagni (presenting / submitting) Francesco Zambotti (presenting)
Conference:
ECER 2012
Format:
Paper

Session Information

12 SES 02, Analysing and Constructing Virtual Environments

Parallel Paper Session

Time:
2012-09-18
15:15-16:45
Room:
FFL - Aula 36
Chair:
Alexander Botte

Contribution

The Erickson Research Centre is developing e-Value: a multimedia system for the assessment of learning skills, the detection of learning difficulties, the design of educational interventions and the delivering of digital didactic content. The system focuses on the application and use of multimedia materials for evaluation, teaching, recovering and empowering. Material traditionally published in books or CD’s is implemented like a learning object and archived in repositories in order to facilitate its search, recombination and use. 

For developing the system are needed:

1.     A description of the didactic materials by content, cognitive context, application. The materials (learning objects and ebooks) have to be recognized  and retrieved by an automatic system, and be browsable or searchable through a search engine.

2.     A thesaurus on the cognitive processes regarding mathematics, reading-writing, languages and metaphonology, and an ontology connecting the whole set of description tags in a structure

3.     A DSS (Decision Support System), able to support the educators, offering different didactical material depending of the various situations.

This paper describes the 1st and 2nd phases, and the first theoretical reflections on the 3rd.

Method

The thesaurus has been developed using the method of brainstorming with professionals on the various topics involved by this project. The Dublin Core metadata set has been used for the basic bibliographical description of this material, then a set of 25 categories has been developed, to broaden the description adding more educational aspects. Finally, some controlled dictionaries have been extended, regarding the topics and various aspects of the delivery context. For the ontology, it has been developed in OWL language on software Protegé, and has been verified, tested and revised to allow the representation of the classification schema in the formal logical language.

Expected Outcomes

The general expected outcome of the e-Value project is the creation of a system which properly supports, with didactical materials, the pupils in their learning difficulties, after having identified them. Expected outcomes of the ontology part of the project is having a high correspondence between needs and materials through the metadata structure.

References

Baader F. [et al.] (eds.) (2003), The Description Logic Handbook: Theory, Implementation, and Applications, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge MT Dempsey, L. & Heery, R. (1998), “Metadata: A current view of practice and issues”, in: Journal of Documentation 54(2), 145-172. Haynes, D. (2004) “Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval”, London : Facet Publishing Szakadát, I., Lois L. & Knapp G. (2005) “New Methods for Enhancing the Effectiveness of the Dublin Core Metadata Standard Using Complex Encoding Schemes”, in: Information System Development: Advances in Theory, Practice, and Education (ed. O. Vasilecas et al.), New York : Kluwer Taylor, A. G. & Joudrey D. N. (2008) The Organization of Information, 3th ed., Westport CT, London : Libraries Unlimited

Author Information

Chiara Ravagni (presenting / submitting)
Erickson Research Centre
Bressanone
Francesco Zambotti (presenting)
Erickson Research Centre, Italy

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