A New Approach to the Use of Semantic Technologies in E-Learning Platforms

Authors

  • Paolo Bouquet Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science - University of Trento, Italy
  • Andrea Molinari Dept. of Industrial Engineering - University of Trento, Italy School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3991/ijac.v9i2.5979

Keywords:

Learning Management Systems, Semantic Technologies, Learning Objects

Abstract


Semantic technologies have been studied and used in different areas of computer science. E-learning has been one of this, but the most frequent use of semantic technologies in this discipline has been in the extraction and indexing of contents, like forums, blogs, learning objects etc. The research presented in this paper aims at taking advantage of semantic technologies in a different way respect to the mainstream use that has been done in the past. This new approach refers to the use of semantic technologies in the management of the persistence layer of Learning Management Systems (LMS), i.e., where all the contents are stored. Our research follows the idea of using semantics technologies as a support, if not an entire replacement, of the backend and persistence mechanisms of LMSs. As a testbed, we will present the design and early results of the application of this approach to the persistence layer of a Virtual Communities System, where these technologies will enriched the platform to address two fundamental issues: a) entities disambiguation and identification inside the persisted objects b) adding new features to the platform without refactoring it.

Author Biographies

Paolo Bouquet, Dept. of Information Engineering and Computer Science - University of Trento, Italy

Paolo Bouquet graduated in Philosophy in 1991 (University of Milan) and then got his PhD in Epistemology in 1997 (University of Genoa). In 2004 he became Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Trento (email: paolo.bouquet@unitn.it)

Andrea Molinari, Dept. of Industrial Engineering - University of Trento, Italy School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland

Andrea Molinari, graduated in Economics (University of Trento), is contract professor at University of Trento, Bolzano and Abo Akademi (Finland) (email: andrea.molinari@unitn.it)

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Published

2016-08-30

How to Cite

Bouquet, P., & Molinari, A. (2016). A New Approach to the Use of Semantic Technologies in E-Learning Platforms. International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning (iJAC), 9(2), pp. 5–12. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijac.v9i2.5979

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Section

Papers