Semantic Web, Linked Data and Education: A Perfect Fit? Mathieu d’Aquin Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK @mdaquin
Semantic Web, Linked Data and Education: A Perfect Fit?
Jan 20, 2015
Keynote talk at the Metadata and Semantics Research Conference (MTSR) 2012. 29-11-2012, Cadiz, Spain
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Semantic Web, Linked Data and Education: A
Perfect Fit?Mathieu d’Aquin
Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK
@mdaquin
The evolution of (higher) education
From Local to GlobalHow do we manage that?(at the technological level)
Metadata for educationBut there are already
metadata standards for learning resources, aren’t
there? Yes, my dear, but I’m not sure this answers
the question…
So this talk should finish here?• IEEE LOM
– Standard for Learning Object Metadata– Reuse Dublin Core– XML-based– Final draft in 2002
• SCORM– Sharable Content Object Reference Model– Started in 1996 / last edition 2009
• MIT OCW Metadata– Open Courseware – Reuse IEEE LOM
• LRMI– Learning Resource Metadata Initiative– Started in June 2011, Spec 1.0 (current) – Plan for integration with Schema.org– Does not reuse any of the other standards
• …
Why it still does not work
Lack of flexibility, too much ambiguity, creating news silos… Maybe standards are not the answer?
http://xkcd.com/927/
The Web…… is quite a great platform
Why don’t we…… use it to connect educational resources to each other?… use it to express the different ways in which these can be understood and reused?… use it to discover, combine and remix things with different origins and purposes?
Duh!
Linked DataOpen University Website
Open UniversityVLE
Mathieu’s Homepage
Mathieu’s List of
PublicationsMathieu’s
The Web
M366 Coursepage
Person: Mathieu
Publication: Pub1
Organisation:The Open University
Course: M366
Country: Belgium
Book: Mechatronics
author
workFor
availableIn
offers
setBook
The Web of Linked Data
The Web of Linked Data
What is it good for?
Accessibility and flexibility!
Example: Application at the Open University
The Open University• The largest university in
the UK: 250K students per year, 8000 associate lecturers, a big campus in Milton Keynes
• Created in 1969• Almost entirely open and
distance learning• 13 regional centers, more
national centers, courses available in a large number of countries
Applying linked data to the Open UNiversity
ORO
Archive of Course Material
Library’sCatalogueOf Digital Content
OpenLearnContent
A/V MaterialPodcastsiTunesU
Data from Research Outputs
BBC
DBPedia
DBLP
RAE
geonames
data.gov.uk
University public data sit in different systems – hard to discover, obtain, integrate by users.
Exposed as linked data, our data interlink with each other and the external world: it becomes part of the “global data space” on the Web
data.open.ac.ukThe first linked data platform providing open information from a across a whole university
Linked Data at the Open UniversityCourse information:
580 modules/ description of the course, information about the levels and number of credits associated with it, topics, and conditions of enrolment.
Research publications: 16,000 academic articles / information about authors, dates, abstract and venue of the publication.
Podcasts: 2220 video podcasts and 1500 audio podcats / short description, topics, link to a representative image and to a transscript if available, information about the course the podcast might relate to and license information regarding the content of the podcast.
Open Educational Resources: 640 OpenLearn Units / short description, topics, tags used to annotate the resource, its language, the course it might relate to, and the license that applies to the content.
Youtube videos: 900 videos / short description of the video, tags that were used to annotate the video, collection it might be part of and link to the related course if relevant.
University buildings: – 100 buildings / address, a picture of the building and the sub-
divisions of the building into floors and spaces. Library catalogue:
12,000 books/ topics, authors, publisher and ISBN, as well as the course related.
Others…
Applications
Resource Discovery
ResearchExploration
Social
d'Aquin, M. (2012) Putting Linked Data to Use in a Large Higher-Education Organisation, Interacting with Linked Data at Extended Semantic Web Conference, ESWC 2012
Example: map of buildings
Interactive map of Open University Buildings in the UK
Example: Study at the OU mobile application
That’s where linked data is
The Semantic Web
Gene Ontology
FMA OntologyLODE
BIBO
Geo Ontology
DBPedia Ontology
Dublin Core
FOAF
DOAP
SIOC
Music Ontology
Media Ontology
rNews
What is it good for?
Interoperability, reusability and open
meaning!
Examples: For libraries, for universities globally, for understanding student’s
activities
Mapping Library Catalogues to Standard Web Vocabularies
Marimba4lib.com
Used by the Spanish National Library
See http://datos.bne.es
Beyond library resources: A global university space
The Open University
University of Bristol
University of Southampton
mEducator
University of Muenster, DEOrganicEduNet
Data.gov.uk education
Orgs., Buidings, Locations
Learning resources
Research ouputs
d'Aquin, M. (2012) Linked Data for Open and Distance Learning, Common Wealth of Learning
Personal analytics based on log integration (see http://uciad.info)
A generic personal analytics dashboard from web and application logs.
Uses a web activity ontology for integration, and ontological reasoning to aggregate information from multiple systems and sites
d'Aquin, M., Elahi, S. and Motta, E. (2011) Semantic Technologies to Support the User-Centric Analysis of Activity Data, Workshop: Social Data on the Web Workshop, SDoW 2011 at ISWC 2011
What more is it good for?
Using Knowledge from the Web!
Examples: For understanding research communities, for discovering new
content for, for research, for analyzing student’s activities
Using links to enrich our own data
Academics in “Arts and Humanities” most often involved with the media (in
number of news items)
Topics most commonly mentioned by news outlets own by the BBC (in
number of news items)
From news clipping data
From dataset about our researchers
From dbpedia.org
data.open.ac.uk
Semantic Indexing
Semantic Index
Named Entity
Recognition
Podcasts, OpenLearn Units and Articles
Semantic Entities (Dbpedia)
Indexes
BBC Programme or iPlayer page
Synopsis
Similarity-Based Search
Indexes
Interface
Resource descriptions
Resources URIs + common topics
d'Aquin, M., Allocca, C. and Collins, T. (2012) DiscOU: A Flexible Discovery Engine for Open Educational Resources Using Semantic Indexing and Relationship Summaries, Demo at International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2012
Enriching data-mining results for interpretation
What even more is it good for?
Combining, interpreting and using sources of
knowledge at run time!(but I’m running out of time ;-)
d'Aquin, M. and Motta, E. (2011) Watson, more than a Semantic Web search engine, Semantic Web Journal, 2d'Aquin, M., Motta, E., Sabou, M., Angeletou, S., Gridinoc, L., Lopez, V. and Guidi, D. (2008) Towards a New Generation of Semantic Web Applications, IEEE Intelligent Systems, 23, 3, pp. 20-28
Towards global education based on the Web of DataThe LinkedUp support action (http://linkedup-project.eu): tackling the challenge of large scale Web Data integration for concrete educational scenarios
Conclusion – Final messageLinked data and semantic web technologies make the promises of educational metadata truly reachable
More importantly, applying linked data and semantic web principles make the promises of open, global education feasible But…
Facing again the same challenges…
Linked Data is about supporting any use case but how do we discover resources in linked data if not described according to what they can do? How do we represent metadata about educational purpose?
LRMI just has “educationalAlignment” which can be anything
Learning Outcome? Competence acquired? More complex pedagogical models?Contradicts the flexibility of Semantic Web / Linked Data
what is the educational purpose of a painting in a museum?Generally: How do we interpret metadata about a resource the context of an education scenario?
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