Traditionally, classrooms have been the major channels of interaction between teachers and students. With the advancements in internet, social media and mobile technologies, learning environments are becoming more enriched with sophisticated interaction and a wealth of online learning material. While this offers a range of improvements, it is posing a set of challenges for educators to accommodate such changes to the benefit of their students. One particular problem is that current teachers are not well equipped with tools to guide students towards the discovery of learning material relevant to the context of their course. For example while it is easy in a classroom to discuss how a video connects to a topic or learning activity within a course, it is much harder to infer such cognitive connections in an online environment. We believe that one of the major bottlenecks is the lack of explicit context alignment between teachers, students and learning resources. We propose using semantic technologies to elicit the contexts in learning environments, and provide the means for teachers to better orchestrate the delivery of their learning concepts in classrooms. We discuss in this seminar a plan to build semantic graphs (i.e. knowledge graphs or maps) to connect existing courses, learning material and other entities involved in leaning environments. This work contributes to enhancing personalized learning, and empowering educators to have better control over learning resources to support their teaching duties.

1. BRINGING TEACHERS, STUDENTS
AND LEARNING RESOURCES
CONTEXTUALLY CLOSER
Fouad Zablith
Olayan School of Business
American University of Beirut
“Today we are not interested in people who know the capital of the
states, but need expert learners who know how to learn” Chris Dede

2. “It is a very
interesting read for
business classes.”

3. “It is a very
interesting read for
business classes.”
Oh, market clustering. Business
intelligence example for
INFO200 Chapter 9?

4. “It is a very
interesting read for
business classes.”
Oh, market clustering. Business
intelligence example for
INFO200 Chapter 9?
A perfect branding
example...
How can we explicitly link resources to our
learning objectives?

5. Internet
Tech.
S
S S
S T S
S S
Social Mobile
Media S Platforms
Classroom

6. Option 1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coreydahl/

7. Option 2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coreydahl/

8. Option 2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coreydahl/

9. Problem
Business School Curriculum
English
Marketing Courses
S Courses
S S
Finance
Courses Textbooks
S T S
Exams Presentations
S S
S
Syllabi
…

10. Problem
• It is getting harder for teachers to direct their students to
resources relevant to their learning and course objectives
due to:
• Shift from offline, to blended or purely online environments
• Continuous increase in online material making it hard for teachers
to keep up
• Lack of explicit context alignment between resources, learning
objectives, students and teachers

11. Online Tool Example
• Mainly used as a
sharing platform
• Connections to the
learning concepts
are hard
• Flat design
approach
• Courses are
created in isolation

12. Proposed Solution
• Eliciting the context of courses and learning resources to
better align them with teachers and students
• Instead of handling a course as a block and replicating
this in online environments, we propose using
conceptually connected graphs to support our learning
objectives
• Engage teachers and students in transparently building
the conceptual graphs throughout their learning
involvement

13. In other words
VS

14. Introduction to Semantic Technologies
• The Semantic Web and Linked Data aim to create
meaningful connections and links at the data level
• Publishing information follows well defined rules such as
reusing existing resources, fixed references
(URIs), choosing the right vocabulary, etc.
• Existing vocabularies are available (e.g. in the academic
domain) to be commonly reused by information
publishers, to enable seamless information exchange

15. Governments
Universities
Bibliography
References
And many more!
“Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/”

16. Are we there yet?

17. In our Context
Learning Video
Course
Concept Material
isa isa isa
coveredIn Viral mentionedIn
INFO_MKTG_250
Marketing

18. In our Context
Structured Conceptual Layer
Learning Video
Course
Concept Material
isa isa isa
coveredIn Viral mentionedIn
INFO_MKTG_250
Marketing
http://linked.aub.edu.lb/resource/course/info_mktg_250
Semantic Relations
Unique Identifiers

19. Semantic Graph Mockup of OSB Courses

20. Automatic Linking Workflow

21. Library
Publications Podcasts
Catalogue
Courses
YouTube People
Information
Linked Data
Platform

22. Linked Data Lucero Statistics
Entity Type Number of Instances
Courses 580
Research Publications 16,000
Video Podcasts 2,200
Audio Podcasts 1,500
Open Educational Resources 640
YouTube Videos 900
University Buildings 100
Library Catalogue Books 12,000

23. Some Outputs Research Output Analytics
Connecting
Learning Material
New Delivery Channels Geo
Connections

24. Crafting Personal Semantic Graphs
• While automation is good for existing structured
information, it has limitations when concepts are
embedded in the content, and at the level of personalizing
learning experiences and resources
• In addition to automation, we need to engage teachers to
semantically graph the delivery of their courses in their
personal classrooms, enriched with learning resources
that can be seamlessly added to the graph

25. Building Personalized Semantic Graphs
T

26. Additional Requirements
• Study the deployment of semantic sharing techniques that
can be integrated in existing applications
• Support users in picking and linking to relevant areas of
the semantic graphs
• Devise mechanisms to channel and adapt content based
on specific learning contexts
• Secure the appropriate centralized platform to serve
linked content

27. Advantages

28. Breaking Courses Isolation
Semantic
Engine
INFO 200 INFO/MKTG 250 FINA 210
Viral Marketing Viral Marketing ROI
Social ROI

29. Sharing
• Enhancing connections between educators and improving
social engagement
This is a nice
VM video
INFO 200 INFO/MKTG 250 FINA 210
Viral Marketing Viral Marketing ROI
Social ROI

30. Sharing
• Enhancing connections between educators and improving
social engagement
This is a nice
VM video
INFO 200 INFO/MKTG 250 FINA 210
Viral Marketing Viral Marketing ROI
Social ROI

31. Adaptive Content Discovery
What are the
slides related
to group
project 1?
S
S S
S T S
S S
S

32. Adaptive Content Discovery
What are the
slides related
to group
project 1?
I want to know
S more about
S S viral marketing
S T S
S S
S

33. Adaptive Content Discovery
What are the
slides related
to group
project 1?
I want to know
S more about
S S viral marketing
Where did I
learn about
S game theory?
T S
S S
S

34. Adaptive Content Discovery
What are the
slides related
to group
project 1?
I want to know
S more about
S S viral marketing
Where did I
learn about webinar,
This
S game theory? is it
T how S
relevant to my
BBA?
S S
S

35. Retaining Knowledge
INFO200
CMPS209
ENG203
MKTG210

36. Further Potential Use Cases

37. Student Assistant
MNGT
210
Office hours: Program
OSB
Running Chess OSB 456
MWF: 3-4pm
interestedIn
AUB
Student
Beirut Marathon
enrolledIn completed
11 Nov 2012
Person Events
MNGT FINA
215 210 Books
You have to take
MNGT 210 next spring.
Hagop Run
New chess book AUBRun
at AUB library
Linked University
Student Context
Content

38. Towards Interactive Cases
Starbucks with the rise of Title
Organizations
social media.
This case explores… Issues
Who
People
Who is involved in
this case?
- Starbucks Assumptions
Missing
- Angry customer A Data Case
A customer posted a bad Learning
feedback on facebook Concepts
Implementation
about the company Plan
Summary
Related
material Courses
Learning
Resources
…..

39. Conclusions and Research Directions
• Semantic technologies can potentially contribute to:
• Better support educators in directing learning content
• Deliver more personalized and adaptive learning experiences
• Move from isolated courses and degree delivery, to a richer and
linked educational program
• Our future research directions include:
• Analyzing the impact of semantic technologies on courses delivery
in classrooms
• Evaluating the enhancements in content discovery within learning
environments
• Investigate the assessment of students on learning
concepts, rather than on course-based evaluations

40. Watch this space
http://linked.aub.edu.lb
Thank you
http://fouad.zablith.org
@fzablith

41. Image Sources
• http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/magazine/how-zara-
grew-into-the-worlds-largest-fashion-
retailer.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
• http://openclipart.org/detail/172849/mobile
• http://www.isle-aux-allumettes.com/town-hall/minutes.php
• http://www.englishkey.com.mx/English%20for%20compan
ies.html
• http://business.time.com/2012/06/21/finding-a-job-in-
2012-real-life-success-stories/