SBIR Phase I: Semantically Intelligent Knowledge Hub for Course Authoring

这个SBIR第一阶段项目建议开发一个系统来显著改善在线学习内容的组织和管理。学校内部使用的大部分教材都停留在学习管理系统和教科书上。然而，许多最新的进展是在这些存储库之外的论坛中获得的。因此，许多高等教育课程都是过时的、一成不变的。教师没有可用的创作工具来利用现有的开放和共享的学习内容。互联网搜索引擎关注的是基于关键词的信息发现和平面索引。然而，高等教育是围绕着从基本核心概念到实际应用的相互关联的概念的知识流构建的。本项目提出开发一种新技术，对从LMS数据库和OER站点等各种来源提取的学习内容进行语义组织。语义解析的学习单元通过智能元数据丰富进行模块化，并跨多个学习维度进行分类，从而增强了现有的元标记标准。语义引擎被封装在一个简单的基于云的直观课程创作UI之后，教师可以使用它来为课件组合视觉上丰富的数字体验。创作UI捕获教师管理和学生相关性，这进一步增强了语义引擎的有效性。该技术更广泛的商业影响是多方面的，如下所述。这将大大降低在线课程编写的成本，并使课程内容与当前的工作能力/技能相关联。该技术提供了在各个部门和机构之间共享独立开发的课件的机制，从而大大简化了教师的创作过程。所有机构课件的一个基于主题的元标记互联中心简化了对大学学习目标和成果的跟踪，从而能够识别课程中的低效率，同时降低认证合规的成本。该项目的技术还允许将现有教科书的粒度分解成简单的机制，并将其编织成教授开发的定制/尖端课件。这为优质学习内容（以更灵活/更小的形式增加传统教科书）创造了一个新的（机构）市场，这些内容被编织到课程工作流程中（随着时间的推移，可能会使过时的大学书店过时）。该市场还使机构能够将专有的增值课程包货币化。基于云的解决方案将获得许可，供整个机构或个别教师/讲师使用。有工具可以帮助课程交付，但没有工具可以帮助内容发现、创作和管理。

This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a system to significantly improve organization and curation of on-line learning content. Majority of educational material used within institutions is stuck in learning management systems and textbooks. However, many of the latest advances are captured in forums outside of these repositories. As a result, many higher-ed courses are obsolete and static. There are no authoring tools available to instructors to leverage existing open and shared learning content. Internet search engines focus on discovery and flat indexing of information based on keywords. However, higher-ed is built around knowledge streams of inter-related concepts that lead from fundamental core concepts to practical applications. This project proposes to develop new technology to semantically organize learning content extracted from various sources including LMS databases and OER sites. The semantically parsed learning units are modularized and categorized across multiple learning dimensions via intelligent meta-data enrichment that enhances existing meta-tagging standards. The semantic engine is packaged behind a simple cloud-based intuitive course authoring UI that teachers can use to put together visually rich digital experiences for courseware. The authoring UI captures teacher curation and student relevance, which further enhance the effectiveness of the semantic engine.The broader commercial impact of the technology is multifold and outlined below. It will significantly lower the cost of online course authoring and makes course content relevant and aligned with current job competencies/skills. The technology provides mechanism to share courseware developed independently across various departments and institutions, thus significantly simplifying the authoring process for teachers. A meta-tagged topic-based interconnected hub of all institutional courseware simplifies tracking of learning objectives and outcomes in colleges, which enables identification of inefficiencies in curriculum while lowering the cost of accreditation compliance. The project's technology also allows a simple mechanism for granularity of existing textbooks to be broken down and woven into custom/cutting edge courseware developed by professors. This creates a new (institutional) market place for premium learning content (in more flexible/small form factors to augment legacy textbooks) that is woven into a course workflow (potentially obsoleting archaic college bookstores over time). The marketplace also enables institutions to monetize proprietary, value-added course-packs. The cloud-based solution will be licensed for institution wide or individual teachers/instructor usage. Tools are available to help with course delivery, but none to help with content discovery, creation and curation.