Enhancing a Web-based distance-learning curriculum with dedicated tools

Abstract

The work presented in this paper aims at supporting students involved in a Web-based distance-learning curriculum. For such a purpose, the Saafir system proposes students with different tools that support them in their appropriation of this curriculum, e.g. visualization of the curriculum from different points of view or construction of individual projects by putting different items of the curriculum into relation. In order to allow using Saafir with already existing distance-learning Websites, the system is designed as an epiphyte system, that can be associated to an existing Website without modifying it. It is founded on an ontology-based model of the curriculum. We present the importance of supporting students in their definition of individual projects, the epiphyte approach we use, the modeling of the curriculum and the different support tools proposed by Saafir.

Ontology mappings to improve learning resource search

“…However, as previous research showed, the community members and the faculty have real difficulty in making annotations of their learning material using subject taxonomies (Greenberg & Robertson, 2002). On the other hand, the faculty is comfortable using their own application domain space such as an ontology of a course curriculum (Rasseneur, Jacoboni & Tchounikine, 2003). This is also beneficial for students, as they are more familiar with their local context (ie, course structure) than with the multiple ontologies used in the remote repositories.…”