The document discusses the integration of semantic technologies in learning environments, highlighting the potential of the semantic web to enhance data sharing and collaboration in educational contexts. It covers topics such as authoring and reusability of learning content, the importance of learning ecosystems, and the challenges in developing effective ontologies. Additionally, it presents various projects and studies related to semantic document management and user interactions within these systems.

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

3. The Social Web is here! What now?

4. Topics to discuss – morning Semantics as a big promise Learning ecosystems Examples of semantics in-use Authoring and reuse of learning content Learning analytics Open challenges

5. Part I Semantics as a Big Promise

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

7. Semantic Web Key characteristics Anyone can say anything about anything Explicit definition of the meaning

8. What is an ontology? Definition (Swartout and Tate, 1999) the basic structure or armature around which a knowledge base can be built

9. RDF

10. The Semantic Web is NOT opposite to the Social Web!

11. Semantic Web Ontologies: Interconnecting applications Shared domain conceptualizations

12. Linked Data

13. Linked Data SPARLQ end points They enable data mash-ups

14. Part III Promises for Learning Environments

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

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

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

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

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

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

21. Part IIIa Authoring and Reuse How to reduce the number of clicks, improve precision and shorten the effort time?

22. Semantic Documents Resources composed of data units Uniquely identified by URIs Annotated by concepts from ontologies Linked to other data units via explicit links

23. Semantic Document Management Semantic Document Authoring RDFizing Annotation Indexing Linking Semantic Document Search & Retrieval Semantic Document Navigation Nešić Saša , Mehdi Jazyeri, Dragan Gasevic "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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

31. Semantic Search Matters

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

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

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

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

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

37. Part IIIb Content Evolution Feedback about effectiveness of used content and pedagogies

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

39. “ A crazy problem requires a crazy solution!” (Griff Richards, 2005)

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

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

42. LOCO-Analyst LOCO-Analyst and iHelp Courses http://www.jelenajovanovic.net/LOCO-Analyst/

43. LOCO-Analyst

44. LOCO-Analyst

45. LOCO-Analyst

46. LOCO-Analyst

47. OATS: Open Annotation & Tagging System OATS with Moodle

48. Education Social Semantic Web Combining Social and Semantic Web aspects OAST and LOCO-Analyst

49. Student comprehension in LOCO-Analyst

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

51. Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst Insights into the activities No statistical improvement over the previous version => Better feedback about interactions between students is needed 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 †

52. Evaluation of LOCO-Analyst User interface Significant preference for the improved tool version (t(38)=2.20, p < 0.05) No statistically significant increase of intuitiveness and information overload 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

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

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

55. Part IV Open Challenges

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

57. Challenges Peer, expert and user retrieval Networks and data are locked List of “friends” is not enough Interaction history also needed Online presence

58. Challenges Analytics for students Personal planning – social organizational Experience sharing Analytics for organizational Learn. organizations and organization learn. Learning ecosystems

59. Stay tuned… http://intelleo.eu Much more underway

60. Personal learning information management More Meaningful personalized interactive social collaborative ubiquitous … Learning ecosystems

61. Thank you!