LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe : Self e-Learning Networks Alex Poulovassilis, Birkbeck, Univ. of London One-year Accompanying Measure for IST V.1.9 CPA9 :GRID Technologies and their Applications

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe Motivation  Information and Knowledge Grids will require semantic integration of heterogeneous information sources  This will need common metadata standards automatic reconciliation and integration of metadata definition of personalised views over the whole distributed information resource change notification and propagation from source to derived objects

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe Aims  The aim of SeLeNe is to investigate the technical feasibility of using Semantic Web technology to support this functionality, with e- Learning as the application testbed  Today’s learners are geographically distributed heterogeneous in backgrounds and learning needs  A wealth of learning resources are increasingly being made available on the Web, again geographically distributed heterogeneous in content, aim, quality

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe Aims We define a Self e-Learning Network to be a distributed repository of educational metadata describing learning objects available on the WWW, collaboratively built and used by anyone who wishes to use existing learning objects or to construct new learning objects, in any knowledge domain

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe Objectives  The SeLeNe Project has 4 main objectives, each of which is being addressed by one Workpackage (running Nov 2002 – Oct 2003): conduct a study of on-line educational resources and metadata identify technologies for managing distributed, evolving RDF repositories identify technologies for syndication and personalisation of educational resources design the high-level system architecture of a Self e-Learning Network – this is likely to be based on a combination of Grid and P2P components

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Syndication and Personalisation This aspect will include semantic reconciliation and integration of heterogeneous metadata describing learning objects and learners support of structured and unstructured querying over this metadata maintaining personal and group profiles which will have an effect on selection, ranking and presentation of query results facilities for defining derived LOs, as views over other, base or derived, LOs change notification and propagation from source LOs to derived Los

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 LO Metadata Standards, Ontologies Learning Objects LO Metadata

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe Consortium Members  Birkbeck database and web technologies: ECA rules, data integration, web personalisation  Institute of Education, University of London educational metadata, users’ requirements for e-learning environments  FORTH, Crete semantic web technology - RDF Suite and extensions; P2P  LRI, University of Paris Sud semantic integration and ontologies  University of Cyprus distributed systems and Grid computing

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 SeLeNe Consortium Members  Birkbeck George Loizou, Alex Poulovassilis, Mark Levene, Peter Wood, Kevin Keenoy (RA), George Papamarkos (RA)  Institute of Education, University of London Don Peterson, Richard Noss, Kevin Keenoy (joint BBK/IOE RA)  FORTH, Crete Vassilis Christophides, Dimitris Plexousakis, Panos Constantopoulos, Miltos Stratakis, Aimilia Maganaraki, Giorgios Zacharioudakis  LRI, University of Paris Sud Nicholas Spyratos, Phillipe Rigaux  University of Cyprus George Samaras, Kyriakos Karenos

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Main Features of SeLeNe  SeLeNe is intended for both supervised and unsupervised learning, and also for the shades of grey in between  We envisage many self e-learning networks (SeLeNe’s) running world-wide, created by and serving different communities of users  New nodes will be able to join a SeLeNe by contacting a known node  The SeLeNe will allow access to LOs that have been registered with it and to their metadata

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Authorisation, Access Control, Pricing  There will be a need for authorisation and access control for different categories of LOs and users  Also a need for pricing of different types of access to different categories of LOs by different categories of users  We envisage a distributed catalogue of all metadata, with one fragment per node of the network – likely to be a distributed RDF repository

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Creating LOs  Users will be able to register base LOs and their associated metadata with a SeLeNe, and also to define and register derived LOs  At a minimum, the metadata for a base or derived LO will be represented using the RDF/S binding of IEEE LOM. Other metadata may also be associated with a LO e.g. relating to domain or topic- specific ontologies  Users will be able to make local replicas of LOs to which they are allowed access, plus their metadata. The “birth’’ catalogue will keep track of all the replicas of an original LO

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 LO Replication  Whenever an original LO is updated or deleted by its author, the SeLeNe will be able to notify all nodes which have made replicas  A user of a replicated LO may choose to be notified about different classes of updates to the source LO and/or to other replicas  Similarly, the author of the original LO may choose to be notified about changes made by someone else to a replica of the LO  If changes to a LO O are not applied to some replica R then R ceases to be a replica of O – similarly, if the author of the original declines to apply updates made to a replica

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Change notification and propagation  SeLeNe will notify delta changes to a LO to those users who have subscribed to these changes, if the changes can be derived from the LO’s content and metadata; otherwise, subscribers will be notified of the whole new LO  A derived LO, O, is dependent on the LOs in terms of which it is directly defined, dep(O). O may be either virtual (no local replication of dep(O)) or materialised (local replication of dep(O)) or indeed a mixture of virtual and materialised  Locally, SeLeNe will be able to propagate changes from dep(O) to O, generating the new metadata for O

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Retrieving LOs  We envisage several alternatives will be available to users to retrieve LOs accessible to them on a SeLeNe: 1.Browsing through the metadata, or through a view thereof 2.Keyword search 3.Annotated keyword search 4.Specification of their learning needs and current levels of knowledge – a formalism will be needed for specifying this information and for matching it with the LO metadata  We also envisage SeLeNe maintaining both personal and group profiles which will have an effect on selection, ranking and presentation of results

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Retrieving LOs  Users will have a choice of having either a disconnected set of LOs returned, or sets of LOs connected into trails  A trail is a coherent sequence of LOs reflecting a possible navigation of the LO space suitable for the user’s expressed needs and profile  See the paper by Mark Levene and Don Peterson on “Trail Records and Ampliative Learning” for further discussion of the role of trails in learning (

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Trails  Trails will be first-class objects, with their own metadata, and facilities for creating, storing, modifying and exchanging them  We envisage 3 types of trails: authored – either individually or collectively derived – from the LO metadata emergent – from repeated individual or collective navigation of the LO space

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Some SeLeNe Usage Scenarios Some of the usage scenarios we envisage for SeLeNe are: An individual author creating and registering a new base LO or derived LO and its associated metadata A group of authors collaborating in creating a LO – base, derived, or a mixture thereof An individual learner retrieving and using LOs, and maintaining her/his own trail space A group of learners collaborating in retrieving and using LOs and in maintaining a shared trail space A group of teachers and learners collaborating in authoring and using a set of LOs and a shared trail space.

LeGE WS 16 th December 2002 Conclusions – Novel Features of SeLeNe  Support and reconciliation of multiple ontologies of learning  Definition of derived LOs as views of base LOs  Change notification and change propagation from base to derived LOs  Support of trails as first-class objects  Support for unsupervised and supervised learning  Support for collaborative authoring and learning  Support for a variety of query modes: browsing, keyword search, annotated keyword search, specification  Support for personalisation of query results, with both individual and group profiles