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Semantic Technologies in Learning Environments Dragan Ga šević Athabasca University Email: dgasevic@acm.org

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<ul><li>The Social Web is here! </li></ul><ul><li>What now? </li></ul>

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Topics to discuss – morning <ul><li>Semantics as a big promise </li></ul><ul><li>Learning ecosystems </li></ul><ul><li>Examples of semantics in-use </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Authoring and reuse of learning content </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Learning analytics </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Open challenges </li></ul>

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<ul><li>Part I </li></ul><ul><li>Semantics as a Big Promise </li></ul>

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Semantic Web <ul><li>To create a universal medium for the exchange of data. </li></ul><ul><li>… to smoothly interconnect personal information management, enterprise application integration and the global sharing of commercial, scientific and cultural data. </li></ul><ul><li> Semantic Web Activity Statement http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity </li></ul>

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Semantic Web <ul><li>Key characteristics </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Anyone can say anything about anything </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Explicit definition of the meaning </li></ul></ul>

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What is an ontology? <ul><li>Definition (Swartout and Tate, 1999) </li></ul><ul><ul><li>the basic structure or armature around which a knowledge base can be built </li></ul></ul>

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RDF

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<ul><li>The Semantic Web is NOT opposite to the Social Web! </li></ul>

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Semantic Web <ul><li>Ontologies: Interconnecting applications </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Shared domain conceptualizations </li></ul></ul>

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Linked Data

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Linked Data SPARLQ end points They enable data mash-ups

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<ul><li>Part III </li></ul><ul><li>Promises for Learning Environments </li></ul>

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Learning Ecosystems http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/1023-sb-W3CTechSemWeb/DataServicesWebAppMetro2.jpg

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Learning Ecosystems Authoring Reusability Packaging Educators Reusability Adaptivity Evolution Collaboration with educators and students

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Learning Ecosystems Authoring Reusability Packaging Educators Feedback Learning and Collaborating Personalization Adaptivity Context-awareness Social interaction … Learners

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Learning Ecosystems Authoring Reusability Packaging Learning and Collaborating Community Peer-Review Presenting Administration Mobile Educators Learners

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Important considerations <ul><li>Julita Vassileva (U of Saskatchewan) </li></ul><ul><ul><li>“ Rule: hard/impossible to impose hard rules” </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Gord McCalla (U of Saskatchewan) </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Ecological approach – sharing experience </li></ul></ul>

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Personal Learning Information Management <ul><li>Connect presently isolated islands - not ecological! </li></ul>Students/Educators <ul><li>Content </li></ul><ul><li>LORs </li></ul><ul><li>Libraries </li></ul><ul><li>Multimedia </li></ul><ul><li>Reuse </li></ul><ul><li>Pedagogy </li></ul><ul><li>User models </li></ul><ul><li>Adaptivity </li></ul><ul><li>Educational models </li></ul><ul><li>Collaboration </li></ul><ul><li>Chat </li></ul><ul><li>Discussion </li></ul><ul><li>Services </li></ul><ul><li>Community </li></ul><ul><li>Course, University, … </li></ul><ul><li>Portfolio </li></ul><ul><li>Evidence </li></ul><ul><li>Competencies </li></ul><ul><li>Peer-review </li></ul><ul><li>Courses </li></ul><ul><li>Publishing </li></ul><ul><li>Platforms </li></ul><ul><li>Mobile </li></ul><ul><li>Desktop </li></ul><ul><li>Domain tools </li></ul><ul><li>Mashed up with education tools </li></ul><ul><li>Desktop </li></ul><ul><li>Email </li></ul><ul><li>Firefox… </li></ul><ul><li>Authoring </li></ul><ul><li>Word </li></ul><ul><li>Frontpage </li></ul><ul><li>Reload… </li></ul><ul><li>Privacy </li></ul><ul><li>Policy </li></ul><ul><li>Identity </li></ul>

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<ul><li>Part IIIa </li></ul><ul><li>Authoring and Reuse </li></ul><ul><li>How to reduce the number of clicks, improve precision and shorten the effort time? </li></ul>

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Semantic Documents <ul><li>Resources composed of data units </li></ul><ul><li>Uniquely identified by URIs </li></ul><ul><li>Annotated by concepts from ontologies </li></ul><ul><li>Linked to other data units via explicit links </li></ul>

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Semantic Document Management <ul><li>Semantic Document Authoring </li></ul><ul><ul><li>RDFizing </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Annotation </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Indexing </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Linking </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Semantic Document Search & Retrieval </li></ul><ul><li>Semantic Document Navigation </li></ul>Nešić Saša , Mehdi Jazyeri, Dragan Gasevic &quot;Semantic Document Architecture for Desktop Document Integration and Management, “ the 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE), San Francisco, USA, 2010, In Press.

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Semantic Documents Sharing <ul><li>Social Networks around shared semantic documents </li></ul>Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Lelli Francesco, and Gasevic Dragan, &quot;Towards Efficient Document Content Sharing in Social Networks,” 2 nd International Workshop on Social Software Engineering and Applications, co-located with ESEC/FSE 2009.

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SemanticDoc – MS Office Tools Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Gašević Dragan, &quot;Extending MS Office for sharing Document Content Units over the Semantic Web,&quot; – 8 th IEEE International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE), Yorktown Heights, New York, USA, 2008.

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SemanticDoc – MS Office Tools Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Gašević Dragan, &quot;Extending MS Office for sharing Document Content Units over the Semantic Web,&quot; – 8 th IEEE International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE), Yorktown Heights, New York, USA, 2008.

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SemanticDoc – MS Office Tools Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Gašević Dragan, &quot;Extending MS Office for sharing Document Content Units over the Semantic Web,&quot; – 8 th IEEE International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE), Yorktown Heights, New York, USA, 2008.

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SemanticDoc – MS Office Tools Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Gašević Dragan, &quot;Extending MS Office for sharing Document Content Units over the Semantic Web,&quot; – 8 th IEEE International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE), Yorktown Heights, New York, USA, 2008.

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SemanticDoc – MS Office Tools Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Gašević Dragan, &quot;Extending MS Office for sharing Document Content Units over the Semantic Web,&quot; – 8 th IEEE International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE), Yorktown Heights, New York, USA, 2008.

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SemanticDoc – MS Office Tools Nešić Saša, Jazayeri Mehdi, Gašević Dragan, &quot;Extending MS Office for sharing Document Content Units over the Semantic Web,&quot; – 8 th IEEE International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE), Yorktown Heights, New York, USA, 2008.

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Semantic Search Matters

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Usability Evaluation <ul><li>User effectiveness and efficiency </li></ul>Nešić Saša, Gašević Dragan, Jazayeri Mehdi, Monica Landoni, &quot; Using Semantic Documents and Social Networking in Authoring Course Material: An Empirical Study,&quot; 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), Tunisia, 2010 (Best paper award) .

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Usability Evaluation <ul><li>User effectiveness and efficiency </li></ul>Nešić Saša, Gašević Dragan, Jazayeri Mehdi, Monica Landoni, &quot; Using Semantic Documents and Social Networking in Authoring Course Material: An Empirical Study,&quot; 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), Tunisia, 2010 (Best paper award) .

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Usability Evaluation <ul><li>User effectiveness and efficiency </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Number of mouse clicks </li></ul></ul>Nešić Saša, Gašević Dragan, Jazayeri Mehdi, Monica Landoni, &quot; Using Semantic Documents and Social Networking in Authoring Course Material: An Empirical Study,&quot; 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), Tunisia, 2010 (Best paper award) .

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Usability Evaluation <ul><li>User effectiveness and efficiency </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Number of windows switches </li></ul></ul>Nešić Saša, Gašević Dragan, Jazayeri Mehdi, Monica Landoni, &quot; Using Semantic Documents and Social Networking in Authoring Course Material: An Empirical Study,&quot; 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT), Tunisia, 2010 (Best paper award) .

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Semantic Documents <ul><li>Open-source project </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Project website: http://www.semanticdoc.org </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Source code: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sdarch/ </li></ul></ul>

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<ul><li>Part IIIb </li></ul><ul><li>Content Evolution </li></ul><ul><li>Feedback about effectiveness of used content and pedagogies </li></ul>

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Context is Missing! http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/1023-sb-W3CTechSemWeb/DataServicesWebAppMetro2.jpg

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<ul><li>“ A crazy problem requires a crazy solution!” </li></ul><ul><li>(Griff Richards, 2005) </li></ul>

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Learning Object Context Ontology: LOCO <ul><li>Learning context </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Learner(s) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Learner characteristics </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Learning activity </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Prerequisites, learning objectives, available time, … </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Learning object used/produced </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Parts of objects and their pedagogical role </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Domain concepts </li></ul></ul>Jovanović, J., Knight, C., Gašević, D., Richards, G., &quot;Learning Object Context on the Semantic Web,&quot; In Proc. 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies , Kerkrade, The Netherlands, 2006 pp. 669-673 ( Best paper award ).

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Learning Object Context Ontology: LOCO <ul><li>Learning context </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Learner(s) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Learner characteristics </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Learning activity </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Prerequisites, learning objectives, available time, … </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Learning object used/produced </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Parts of objects and their pedagogical role </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Domain concepts </li></ul></ul>Jovanović, J., Knight, C., Gašević, D., Richards, G., &quot;Learning Object Context on the Semantic Web,&quot; 6th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies , Kerkrade, The Netherlands, 2006 pp. 669-673 ( Best paper award ).

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LOCO-Analyst <ul><li>LOCO-Analyst and iHelp Courses </li></ul>http://www.jelenajovanovic.net/LOCO-Analyst/

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LOCO-Analyst

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LOCO-Analyst

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LOCO-Analyst

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LOCO-Analyst

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OATS: Open Annotation & Tagging System <ul><li>OATS with Moodle </li></ul>

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Education Social Semantic Web <ul><li>Combining Social and Semantic Web aspects </li></ul><ul><ul><li>OAST and LOCO-Analyst </li></ul></ul>

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Student comprehension in LOCO-Analyst

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Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst <ul><li>Two evaluations </li></ul><ul><ul><li>In 2006 </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Instructions provided and asked to try the tool </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Participants: 18 (14 male, 4 female) </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Experience: 3.09 (SD=2.2) </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>In 2009 </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Video clips demonstrating the tool </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Participants: 22 (17 male, 5 female) </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Experience: 6.45 (SD=5.58) </li></ul></ul></ul>

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Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst <ul><li>Insights into the activities </li></ul><ul><ul><li>No statistical improvement over the previous version => </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Better feedback about interactions between students is needed </li></ul></ul>4.57, 0.68, 21 NA Help me identify the domain topics the students were having difficulties with. 3.54, 1.01, 22 3.17, 1.09, 18 The information helps me determine how to improve the students’ online interactions. † 4.41, 0.80, 22 3.72, 0.46, 18 Relevant information regarding the students’ interactions within the online learning environment † 4.27, 0.70, 22 3.50, 0.70, 18 The information helps me identify what needs to be improved in the learning content † 4.45, 0.67, 22 3.71, 0.47, 17 Enables me to get an insight into the students’ interactions with the learning content †

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Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst <ul><li>User interface </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Significant preference for the improved tool version (t(38)=2.20, p < 0.05) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>No statistically significant increase of intuitiveness and information overload </li></ul></ul>4.5, 0.60, 22 4.00, 0.84, 18 General opinion about the GUI 2.5, 1.34, 22 1.72, 0.58, 18 LOCO-Analyst’s GUI is overburdened with information ‡ 4.5, 0.80, 22 4.22, 0.73,18 LOCO-Analyst’s GUI (Graphical User Interface) is intuitive enough

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Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst <ul><li>Predictors of the perceived utility </li></ul><ul><ul><li>information about interactions of students </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>social networking </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>students’ comprehension of content </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>collaborative tagging </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>intuitiveness & ease-to-understand of the presentation of the above two </li></ul></ul>

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Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst <ul><li>Predictors of user interface perceived value </li></ul><ul><ul><li>students’ interaction with individual lessons </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Individual learning – granularity level </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>students’ activities in discussion forums and chat rooms </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>social activities </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>students’ comprehension of studied topics </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>collaborative tagging </li></ul></ul></ul>

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<ul><li>Part IV </li></ul><ul><li>Open Challenges </li></ul>

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Challenges <ul><li>Ontology development </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Similar to databases – someone needs to develop </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Some ontology development lessons learned </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Lightweight ontologies: “Little semantics goes a long way” </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Linked with other ontologies </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Friend of a Friend </li></ul></ul></ul><ul><ul><ul><li>Semantically-interlinked Online Communities </li></ul></ul></ul>

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Challenges <ul><li>Peer, expert and user retrieval </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Networks and data are locked </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>List of “friends” is not enough </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Interaction history also needed </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Online presence </li></ul>

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Challenges <ul><li>Analytics for students </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Personal planning – social organizational </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Experience sharing </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Analytics for organizational </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Learn. organizations and organization learn. </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Learning ecosystems </li></ul>

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Stay tuned… <ul><li>http://intelleo.eu </li></ul><ul><li>Much more underway </li></ul>

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<ul><li>Personal learning information management </li></ul><ul><li>More Meaningful </li></ul><ul><li>personalized interactive social collaborative </li></ul><ul><li>ubiquitous … </li></ul><ul><li>Learning ecosystems </li></ul>

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Thank you!