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.
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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.
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.
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
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
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Animation
Animation -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Audio
Audio -
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.
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.
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.
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/ContinuousCF
Continuous Content Fragment -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/DiscreteCF
Discrete Content Fragment -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Graphics
Graphics -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Image
Image -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/LearningObject
Learning Object - Learning Objects aggregate Content Objects and add a learning objective.
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Text
Text -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/Video
Video -
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/content
content - The content of a Text content fragment (the actual string content).
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)
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/hasLearningObjective
has learning objective - Each learning object is assigned one or more learning objectives
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.
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/height
height - The height of an Image
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.
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.
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)
URI: http://jelenajovanovic.net/ontologies/loco/alocom-core/ns/width
width - The width of an Image
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.