RDFa Versus Microformats

RDFa versus Microformats: Exploring the Potential for Semantic Interoperability of Mash-up Personal Learning Environments
Vladimir Tomberg, Mart Laanpere

Tallinn University, Narva mnt. 25, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia
vtomberg@tlu.ee, mart.laanpere@tlu.ee

A Course as dynamic process
Mash-up PLE have become a fast developing trend
Course is not just a syllabus, it also involves various dynamic processes
These processes can be described by way of metadata using

Which Metadata we need?

Course has:
Learning goals
Schedule of learning activities (assignments, discussions)
Registered participants (teachers, students)
Different types of resources
We usually can extract such information from LMS, but how it is possible in case of PLE?

Formats for PLE metadata
(X)HTML is a main format for PLE
(X)HTML syntaxes are not designed for carrying the semantic data
Different technologies were introduced in the past
Microformats and RDFa are two most widespread

Scenario
Teacher publishes a Course’s information by using a web application — blog, wiki, forum or personal web site
Information by means of mash-ups is delivered to learners

Scenario: Data

The Course can contain:
(meta)data about the course syllabus,
pre-requisite and target competencies,
amount of credits,
dates for start and end of the course,
the criteria and form of a final assessment,
contact information of teachers and other participants

Scenario: Features
Teacher can constantly update the course information during time
Teacher assigns lectures, announces an assessment and evaluates learners
Learners thus constantly have the fresh information on everything that happens on a course

Microformats
HTML code:
<a href = "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" rel="license">cc by 2.0</a>
In browser:
cc by 2.0

Microformats
Standard (X)HTML attributes 'class', 'rel' and 'rev' are used for metadata storing purpose
Not standardized, but well specified and widely known
Endless development
Have no ontologies, formal descriptions or schemes

RDFa
HTML code:
<a rel="cc:license" href="http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"> Creative Commons License </a>
In browser:
Creative Commons License

RDFa

Standardized by W3C
Uses 10 reserved tags, 5 of them from XHTML2
Can be applied for RDFa only to XHTML2, not for HTML, XHTML1
Mixing different namespaces in one document is possible, for example 'dc:' and 'cc:' simultaneously
Hard to suppose prospect because of end of XHTML 2 support from W3C

Technological Comparison

Semantic Comparison

Application for educational needs

Implementation on Wordpress
Vladimir Tomberg, Mart Laanpere
Towards Lightweight LMS 2.0: A Blog-based Approach to Online Assessment,
EC-TEL 2008 Maastricht, The Netherlands

Under development at present

Conclusion