According to constructivist theory of learning, new knowledge is learned on the basis of what is already known by learners. Thus for an emerging and transformative technology such as Linked Data to be learned, the technology must be made relevant for learners and must be compatible with their skillset. Designing and developing Linked Data…

Large-sized repositories of learning objects (LOs) are difficult to create and also to maintain. In this paper we propose a way to reduce this drawback by improving the classification mechanisms of the LO repositories. Specifically, we present a solution to automate the LO classification of the Universia repository, a collection of more than 15…

Multimedia educational resources play an important role in education, particularly for distance learning environments. With the rapid growth of the multimedia web, large numbers of educational video resources are increasingly being created by several different organizations. It is crucial to explore, share, reuse, and link these educational…

Social and mobile technologies offer users unprecedented opportunities for communicating, interacting, sharing, meaning-making, content and context generation. And, these affordances are in constant flux driven by a powerful interplay between technological innovation and emerging cultural practices. Significantly, also, they are starting to…

Current E-Learning technologies primarily follow a data and metadata-centric paradigm by providing the learner with composite content containing the learning resources and the learning process description, usually based on specific metadata standards such as ADL SCORM or IMS Learning Design. Due to the design-time binding of learning resources,…

Today's technology-enhanced learning practices cater to students and teachers who use many different learning tools and environments and are used to a paradigm of interaction derived from open, ubiquitous, and socially oriented services. In this context, a crucial issue for education systems in general, and for Intelligent Learning Environments…

IMS Learning Design (IMS-LD) is a promising technology aimed at supporting learning processes. IMS-LD packages contain the learning process metadata as well as the learning resources. However, the allocation of resources--whether data or services--within the learning design is done manually at design-time on the basis of the subjective appraisals…

It seems a foregone conclusion that repositories for reusable learning objects (RLOs), based on common standards and supported by suitable search facilities, will foster a global economic market in the production of RLOs. Actual reuse will support producers of high-quality RLOs, and other producers will be unable to compete, i.e. competition…

Significant economies can be achieved in distributed learning systems architected with a focus on interoperability and reuse. The key building blocks of an efficient distributed learning architecture are the use of standards and XML technologies. The goal of plug and play capability among various components of a distributed learning system…

With the expansion of e-learning, the understanding and evaluation of already created e-learning environments is becoming an extremely important issue. One way to dealing with the problem is analysis of case studies, i.e. already created environments, from the reuse perspective. The paper presents a general framework and model to assess UNITE, the…

One of the "hottest" topics in recent information systems and computer science is metadata. Learning Object Metadata (LOM) appears to be a very powerful mechanism for representing metadata, because of the great variety of LOM Objects. This is on of the reasons why the LOM standard is repeatedly cited in projects in the field of eLearning…

We apply the object oriented software engineering (OOSE) design methodology for software objects (SOs) to learning objects (LOs). OOSE extends and refines design principles for authoring dynamic reusable LOs. Our learning object class (LOC) is a template from which individualised LOs can be dynamically created for, or by, students. The properties…

Students are, increasingly, digital content producers, and participate extensively in evolving online social networks. The emergence of the former represents subtle changes in students' experience of images, audience, copyright, ownership of learning, and technology. Experiencing the latter places students in an awkward position in terms of…

Purpose: The paper aims to introduce an educational content management system, Hypermedia Learning Objects System (hylOs), which is fully compliant to the IEEE LOM eLearning object metadata standard. Enabled through an advanced authoring toolset, hylOs allows the definition of instructional overlays of a given eLearning object mesh.…

This paper examines the sufficiency of existing e-Learning standards for facilitating and supporting the introduction of adaptive techniques in computer-based learning systems. To that end, the main representational and operational requirements of adaptive learning environments are examined and contrasted against current eLearning standards. The…