ALOCoM Core Ontology

Working Draft — 24 December 2010

This version:
http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/20101224/spec/
Latest version:
http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/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:
Nikola Milikic, FOS - Faculty of Organisational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia

See also the 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.


Abstract

The ALOCoM Core ontology defines the basic kinds of content units (i.e., content components) as well as aggregation and navigation relationships between the content units. By formally identifying components of a learning object, the ontology makes each component (content unit) directly accessible and thus reusable.

Two content ontologies extend ALOCoM Core and further define the basic types of content units from two different perspectives: ALOCoM Content Structure is about content structuring, whereas ALOCoM Content Type focuses on potential instructional/pedagogical roles of content units.

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 Core ontology at a glance
  2. ALOCoM Core ontology overview
  3. Cross-reference for ALOCoM Core classes and properties

Appendixes

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

1. ALOCoM Core ontology at a glance

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

The ontology namespace: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns
The prefix to be used for this namespace: alocom-core

Classes: Animation, Audio, ContentFragment, ContentObject, ContentUnit, ContinuousCF, DiscreteCF, Graphics, Image, LearningObject, Text, Video

Properties: content, follows, hasLearningObjective, hasPart, height, href, isPartOf, precedes, width

 

2. ALOCoM Core ontology overview

The ALOCoM Core ontology defines the basic kinds of content units (i.e., content components) as well as aggregation and navigation relationships between the content units. By formally identifying components of a learning object, the ontology makes each component (content unit) directly accessible and thus reusable [Gasevic et al, 2006].

The ALOCoM Core ontology, together with its two extensions (ALOCoM Content Structure and ALOCoM Content Type) have been used in the LO repository of the ARIADNE Foundation as a format for storing well-structured and easy-to-reuse LOs [Verbert et al, 2006]. These ontologies and the prototypes built on top of them have demonstrated a high potential to improve today’s most commonly used authoring tools (MS Word, MS PowerPoint) with the features for ontology-based and context-aware search for content units to be reused/repurposed during the authoring process [Verbert & Duval, 2008]. Moreover, our TANGRAM tool demonstrated novel opportunities for dynamic composition of learning object components, even if they originate from different LOs [Jovanovic et al, 2006] [Jovanovic et al, 2009]. We are currently using the ALOCoM ontologies to model different kinds of knowledge and learning objects within the IntelLEO EU FP7 STREP project.

The ontology is based on the ALOCoM (Abstract Learning Object Content Model) which is a generic abstract content model for learning objects (LOs) and their components [Verbert et al, 2004]. The ontology provides an explicit definition of the LO content structure, formally specifying both the basic LO component types and relationships between those components.

The basic concepts of this ontology include Content Fragment, Content Object, and Learning Object (Figure 1). Content Fragments are content units in their most basic form, like text, audio, and video (i.e., raw digital resources that cannot be further decomposed into meaningful content units). A Content Object is an aggregation of Content Fragments and/or other Content Objects, whereas a Learning Object aggregates Content Objects around a single learning objective.

Figure 1. The main classes of the ALOCoM Core ontology

The ontology also includes properties for representing content aggregation and navigational relationships between content units (Figure 2). Aggregation relationships are represented in the form of hasPart and its inverse isPartOf properties. Navigational relationships between content units are specified through the preceeds property and its inverse follows property.

Figure 2. Relationships between the main classes of the ALOCoM Core ontology

 

4. Cross-reference for ALOCoM Core classes and properties

Class: alocom-core:Animation

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Animation

Animation -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContinuousCF

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:Audio

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Audio

Audio -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContinuousCF

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:ContentFragment

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/ContentFragment

Content Fragment - Content Fragments are learning content units in their most basic form, like text, audio and video. They can be regarded as raw digital resources that cannot be further decomposed into meaningful educational content units.

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContentUnit

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:ContentObject

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/ContentObject

Content Object - Content Objects (COs) aggregate Content Fragments (CFs) and add navigation. Navigation elements enable structuring of CFs in a CO. Besides CFs, COs also include other COs.

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContentUnit
in-domain-of:
alocom-core:hasPart
in-range-of:
alocom-core:isPartOf

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Class: alocom-core:ContentUnit

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/ContentUnit

ContentUnit - Content Unit is an abstract concept aimed at representing content of any level of granularity.

in-domain-of:
alocom-core:follows
alocom-core:isPartOf
alocom-core:precedes
alocom-core:href
in-range-of:
alocom-core:follows
alocom-core:hasPart
alocom-core:precedes

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:ContinuousCF

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/ContinuousCF

Continuous Content Fragment -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContentFragment

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:DiscreteCF

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/DiscreteCF

Discrete Content Fragment -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContentFragment

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:Graphics

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Graphics

Graphics -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:DiscreteCF

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:Image

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Image

Image -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:DiscreteCF
in-domain-of:
alocom-core:height
alocom-core:width

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:LearningObject

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/LearningObject

Learning Object - Learning Objects aggregate Content Objects and add a learning objective.

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContentUnit
foaf:Document
in-domain-of:
alocom-core:hasLearningObjective
alocom-core:hasPart
in-range-of:
alocom-core:isPartOf

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:Text

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Text

Text -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:DiscreteCF
in-domain-of:
alocom-core:content

[back to top]

Class: alocom-core:Video

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Video

Video -

sub-class-of:
alocom-core:ContinuousCF

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:content

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/content

content - The content of a Text content fragment (the actual string content).

OWL Type:
DatatypeProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:Text
Range:
xsd:string

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Property: alocom-core:follows

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/follows

follows - The sequencing relationship between two content units; defines their order inside a larger content unit they belong to (e.g. two content fragments inside a content object)

OWL Type:
ObjectProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:ContentUnit
Range:
alocom-core:ContentUnit

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:hasLearningObjective

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/hasLearningObjective

has learning objective - Each learning object is assigned one or more learning objectives

OWL Type:
ObjectProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:LearningObject

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Property: alocom-core:hasPart

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/hasPart

hasPart - The hasPart and its inverse isPartOf properties allow for expressing aggregational relationships between content units.

OWL Type:
ObjectProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:ContentObject
alocom-core:LearningObject
Range:
alocom-core:ContentUnit

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:height

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/height

height - The height of an Image

OWL Type:
DatatypeProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:Image
Range:
xsd:decimal

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:href

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/href

href - The link to the physical location of a ContentUnit; it can be a path on the local machine or (preferably) a Web accessible location.

OWL Type:
DatatypeProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:ContentUnit
Range:
xsd:anyURI

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:isPartOf

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/isPartOf

isPartOf - The isPartOf and its inverse hasPart properties allow for expressing aggregational relationships between content units.

Inverse:
alocom-core:hasPart
OWL Type:
ObjectProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:ContentUnit
Range:
alocom-core:ContentObject
alocom-core:LearningObject

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:precedes

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/precedes

precedes - The sequencing relationship between two content units; defines their order inside a larger content unit they belong to (e.g. two content fragments inside a content object)

Inverse:
alocom-core:follows
OWL Type:
ObjectProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:ContentUnit
Range:
alocom-core:ContentUnit

[back to top]

Property: alocom-core:width

URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/width

width - The width of an Image

OWL Type:
DatatypeProperty
Domain:
alocom-core:Image
Range:
xsd:decimal

[back to top]

 


A References

[Verbert et al, 2004]
Verbert, K., Klerkx, J., Meire, M., Najjar, J., and Duval, E., “Towards a Global Component Architecture for Learning Objects: an Ontology Based Approach,” Proc. of OTM 2004 Workshop on Ontologies, Semantics and E-learning, Agia Napa, Cyprus, 2004.
[Gasevic et al, 2006]
Gasevic, D., Jovanovic, J., Devedzic, V., "Ontology-based Annotation of Learning Object Content," Interactive Learning Environments, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2007, pp. 1-26.
[Verbert et al, 2006]
Verbert, K., Jovanovic, J., Duval, E., Gasevic, D., Meire, M., "Ontology-based Learning Content Repurposing: The ALOCoM Framework," International Journal on E-Learning, Vol.5, No.1, 2006, pp.67-74.
[Jovanovic et al, 2006]
Jovanovic, J., Gasevic, D., Devedzic, V., "Ontology-based Automatic Annotation of Learning Content," International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2006, pp. 91-119.
[Jovanovic et al, 2009]
Jovanovic, J., Gasevic, D., Devedzic, V., "TANGRAM for Personalized Learning Using Semantic Web Technologies," Journal of Emerging Technologies in Web Intelligence, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2009, pp. 6-21.
[Verbert & Duval, 2008]
Verbert, K., & Duval, E., "ALOCOM: a generic content model for learning objects," Interantional Journal on Digital Libraries, Vol.9, No.1, 2008, pp. 41-63.

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.