ALOCoM Content Structure Ontology

Working Draft —24 December 2010

This version:

http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-content-structure/20101224/spec/

Latest version:

http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-content-structure/spec/

Last Update:

Date: 24 December 2010

Authors:

Jelena Jovanovic, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Dragan Gasevic, Athabasca University, Canada

Katrien Verbert, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Erik Duval, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Contributors:

See acknowledgements

This specification was created to be structurally and visually similar to the widely known and used ontologies, such as FOAF and SIOC. It was partially automatically generated using the SpecGen5 tool.

You are granted a license to use, reproduce and create derivative works of this document.

Abstract

The ALOCoM Content Structure ontology is defined as an extension of the ALOCOM Core ontology with the aim to formally define different kinds of components that form the structure of a learning object. Accordingly, it defines different kinds of content units from the perspective of their “role” within the structure of a learning object (e.g., Table, List, Paragraph), as well as different kinds of learning objects (e.g., WikiPage, BlogPost).

Status of this Document

This is a work in progress! This document is still changing on a monthly if not weekly basis. Comments are very welcome, please send them to jeljov@gmail.com. Thank you.

Table of Contents

1. ALOCoM Content Structure ontology at a glance
2. ALOCoM Content Structure ontology overview
3. ALOCoM Content Structure ontology - an example
4. Cross-reference for ALOCoM Content Structure classes and properties

Appendixes

1. Normative References
2. Acknowledgements (Non-Normative)

1. ALOCoM Content Structure ontology at a glance

An alphabetical index of ALOCoM Content Structure terms, by class (concepts) and by property (relationships, attributes), are given below. All the terms are hyperlinked to their detailed description for quick reference.

2. ALOCoM Content Structure ontology overview

The ALOCoM Content Structure ontology is defined as an extension of the ALOCOM Core ontology with the aim to formally define different kinds of components that typically form the structure of a learning object and thus make each component directly accessible and reusable. Accordingly, the ontology defines a number of concepts related to the structure of almost any learning object. In other words, it defines concepts that describe the components common to any type of learning object, such as Title, Section, Table, etc. These concepts are included in the ontology as subclasses of the alocom-core:ContentObject and alocom-core:LearningObject classes.

For defining Content Object types, we investigated existing information architectures, like the Information Block Architecture developed by [Horn, 1998] and the IBM Darwin Information Typing Architecture [Priestley, 2001]. These architectures define information types (e.g. concept, principle, task) and their building blocks (e.g. example, definition, analogy). Learning Object types are defined through exploration of the present educational practices and the typical kinds of learning objects used in practice.

3. ALOCoM Content Structure ontology - an example

The following example illustrates the combined use of the ALOCoM Content Structure ontology with the other two ALOCoM-based ontologies (ALOCoM Core and ALOCoM Content Type) to formalize the structure of a learning object. Specifically, the given example is about an imaginary tutorial on learning object content models, created in the form of a slide presentation. The tutorial consists of a number of slides, but to keep the example concise, the structure of only one slide is presented. The considered slide contains a title, a body which comprises an image illustrating the ALOCoM model, and a comment providing further reference for the illustrated model.    

Please note that instance URIs are intentionally simplified to avoid potential confusion that long URIs could cause.

@base:  <http://www.example.org/triplestore/alocom_data#>.
@prefix  alocom-core: <http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/>.
@prefix  alocom-cs:  <http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-content-structure/ns/>.
@prefix  alocom-ct:  <http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-content-type/ns/>.
@prefix  dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>.
@prefix  foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/>.
:example_slidepresentation
	a alocom-cs:SlidePresentation,  alocom-ct:Tutorial ;
  	dct:title "Learning Object Content  Models" ;
  	foaf:maker :example_slide_author ;
  	dct:date "2010-10-04" ;
  	alocom-core:href "http://www.example.org/tutorials/lo_content_models.ppt"  ;
  	alocom-core:hasPart :example_slide_1,  :example_slide_2, … , :example_slide_n .

:example_slide_2
   a alocom-cs:Slide ;
   alocom-core:isPartOf :example_slidepresentation  ;
   alocom-core:follows :example_slide_1 ;
   alocom-core:precedes :example_slide_3 ;
	alocom-core:hasPart :slide_1_title ;
  	alocom-core:hasPart :slide_1_body ;
   alocom-core:hasPart :slide_1_comment .

:slide_1_title
   a alocom-cs:Title ;
   alocom-core:precedes :slide_1_body ;
   alocom-core:hasPart [
  			a alocom-cs:Text ; 
  			alocom-core:content "Abstract  Learning Object Content Model (ALOCoM)" ] .

:slide_1_body
	a alocom-cs:Body, alocom-ct:Illustration  ;
   alocom-core:follows :slide_1_title ;
   alocom-core:hasPart :slide_1_image .

:slide_1_image
   a alocom-core:Image ;
   dct:title "ALOCoM Content Model" ;
   alocom-core:height "350"^^xsd:decimal  ;
   alocom-core:width "650"^^xsd:decimal  ;
   alocom-core:href "http://www.example.org/assets/images/alocom.jpg"  .

:slide_1_comment
   a alocom-cs:Comment, alocom-ct:Reference  ;
   alocom-core:hasPart [
  			a alocom-core:Text ;
  			alocom-core:content "The  paper [Verbert et al, 2005] explains the model in details" . ] ;
  foaf:maker :another_person .

:example_slide_author  a foaf:Person .
:another_person a foaf:Person .      

4. Cross-reference for ALOCoM Content Structure classes and properties

A References

[Horn, 1998]

Horn, R. E. Structured writing as a paradigm. In Instructional Development: the State of the Art. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1998.

[Priestley, 2001]

Priestley, M. (2001). DITA XML: a reuse by reference architecture for technical documentation. In Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference on Computer Documentation, Sante Fe, USA, pp. 152-156.

B Acknowledgements (Non-Normative)

We would like to acknowledge the many helpful comments and suggestions from members of the GOOD OLD AI research network. We are also thankful to Sergio Fernández for the SpecGen5 which was used in the creation of this specification.