NSDL: Towards Reusable and Shareable Courseware: Topic Maps-Based Digital Libraries

在以网络为基础的课程支持环境中，教师的有效性和学习者参与开放学习和教学任务的效率主要取决于他们得到的支持：学习者检索相关信息以执行其学习任务，以及教师创建和维护在线教学材料。两组相关问题分别涉及学习资源的可查找性和数字教育资源库的可重用性和共享性。只有当存储库的数字内容是基于标准的时，这些问题的解决方案才是可行的。网络学习资源库的标准化不仅要从技术的角度解决，更要从知识的角度来解决。这个项目提供了一条更好地理解和解决与网络上特定学科学习对象的有效检索、共享、重用和交换有关的问题的途径。通过对新的ISO标准--主题地图在NSDL框架内的应用进行深入分析，可以看出它与其他类似维度的语义Web解决方案相比有何不同。数字课程图书馆的基于概念的架构为有效地基于上下文检索学习资源以及更深入地理解特定学科领域的本体论结构提供了基础。基于主题地图的架构实现为基于标准的知识和信息表示和管理提供了统一的框架，这意味着学习内容的可重用性、共享性和互操作性。开发的支持本体感知的数字课程库的环境为课件作者和用户提供了一种替代的解决方案，在某些情况下可以更好地满足他们的需求。本项目影响基于Web的教育系统和数字图书馆社区，包括此类系统的设计者、开发者和用户(教师、作者)，并通过他们影响参与各种形式的教育的学习者-正规、非正式和终身学习。它促进使用新的ISO标准主题地图用于教育目的，并提供关于本体在数字图书馆和教学技术中所扮演的角色的见解。该软件工具提高了基于网络的学习支持环境中学习者和教师的表现效率。

The effectiveness of instructors and efficiency of learners engaged in open-learning and teaching tasks in Web-based course support environments depend crucially on the support they receive: for learners in retrieving relevant information to perform their learning tasks and for instructors in creating and maintaining online teaching and learning material. Two groups of related problems concern correspondingly findability of learning resources and reusability and shareability of digital educational repositories. A solution to these problems is only viable if the digital content of the repositories is standards-based. Standardization of e-learning repositories should be addressed not only from a technological perspective but also from a knowledge perspective.This project provides a path to better understanding and solving some problems related to efficient retrieval, sharing, reuse, and interchange of discipline-specific repositories of learning objects on the Web. An in-depth analysis of the application of the new ISO standard, Topic Maps, within the framework of NSDL reveals how it compares to other Semantic Web solutions along similar dimensions. The concept-based architecture of digital course libraries provides grounds for efficient context-based retrieval of learning resources as well as for deeper understanding of the ontological structure of the specific subject domain. The topic maps-based implementation of the architecture provides a unifying framework for standards-based knowledge and information representation and management, which implies reusability, shareability, and interoperability of the learning content. The developed environment for supporting ontology-aware digital course libraries offers an alternative solution to courseware authors and users, which in some cases could meet better their needs.This project impacts Web-based educational systems and digital libraries communities including designers, developers, and users (instructors, authors) of such systems, and through them on learners involved in various forms of education - formal, informal, and lifelong learning. It promotes the use of the new ISO standard Topic Maps for educational purposes and provides insight about the role that ontologies can play in digital libraries and instructional technology.This software tool improves the performance effectiveness of both learners and instructors in Web-based learning support environments.