Title: A contextual semantic representation of learning assets in online communities of practice

Authors: Lamia Berkani; Azeddine Chikh

Addresses: Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Computer and Electrical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Houari Boumediene (USTHB), P.O. BOX 32 El-Alia 16111 Bab Ezzouar, Algiers, Algeria ' Information Systems Department, College of Computer Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: This paper presents an ontology-based framework for a contextual semantic representation of learning assets within a Community of Practice of E-learning (CoPE). The community, made up of actors from the e-learning domain (teachers, tutors, pedagogues, administrators…), is considered as a virtual space for exchanging and sharing techno-pedagogic knowledge and know-how between those actors. Our objective is to semantically describe the CoPE's learning assets using contextual semantic annotations. We consider two types of semantic annotations: (a) objective annotations, describing the learning assets with a set of context-related metadata and (b) subjective annotations, to express the members' experience and feedback regarding these same assets. The paper is illustrated with a case study related to a semantic adaptive wiki using the framework and aiming to foster the knowledge sharing and reuse between the CoPE's members. The wiki provides essentially a semantic search and a recommendation support of assets.

Keywords: communities of practice; e-learning; learning assets; metadata; semantics; ontologies; semantic representation; contextual semantic annotation; knowledge reuse; semantic adaptive wikis; semantic search; recommendations; recommender systems; online communities; virtual communities; web based communities; electronic learning; knowledge sharing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSO.2013.054182

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 2013 Vol.8 No.1, pp.28 - 45

Received: 18 Jul 2012
Accepted: 21 Feb 2013
Published online: 14 Oct 2014 *

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