Ontology Based Teaching Domain Knowledge Management for E-Learning by Doing Systems

Abstract

This paper is about an ontological representation of a teaching domain (a discipline) in the case of an e-learning by doing purpose. Going from our precedent works about using ontologies for modeling specific domains such as algorithmic and relational databases, we show in this paper that it is possible to generalize our approach to any domain based on e-learning by doing mode. The model introduced here shows a domain through two points of views: the specification view given by the ontology and the resources view generally known in e-learning as learning objects. The specification ontology is a granular model where the knowledge of a considered domain is stored, making the use of the ontology for resources retrieval (web semantic use) or for any other learning or teaching activity guided by the domain semantic. This model has been successfully implemented in different learning by doing systems for computer science domains in particular for linear programming in addition to algorithmic and relational databases learning. Among the novelties of this model, we have the possible propagation of the learner's evaluation results to each defined components of the expert domain allowing adaptive content generation. The second novelty is related to the integration of pedagogical resources descriptors described using some data elements from the LOM standard metadata scheme. This will give connection between the ontology concepts (considered at the instance level as semantic annotations) to the domain pedagogical resources, what makes the model significantly more powerful.