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Towards a semantic infrastructure for context-aware e-learning

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Abstract

Architectural supports, e.g., user context processing and learning content management are essential for facilitating the development and proliferation of context-aware e-learning services. In this paper, we propose a context-aware e-learning infrastructure called Semantic Learning Space. It leverages the Semantic Web technologies to support semantic knowledge representation, systematic context management, interoperable content integration, expressive knowledge query, and adaptive content recommendation. The functionality encapsulated in the infrastructure handles the common, time-consuming and low-level details in learning context processing and content management. The architectural design and enabling technologies are described in detail. Finally, the prototype implementation and preliminary experimental results are presented.

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Acknowledgment

This work was partially supported by the High-Tech Program of China (863) (No. 2009AA011903), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 60903125, 60803044), Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (No. 20070699014), France ICT-Asia project “I-CROSS: Impromptu, Context-aware and Trustworthy Service Provision in Heterogeneous and Unfamiliar Spaces”, and the Science Foundation Ireland under grant No. SFI/08/CE/I1380 (Lion-2).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Zhiwen Yu & Xingshe Zhou

  2. National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Lei Shu

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  1. Zhiwen Yu
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  2. Xingshe Zhou
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  3. Lei Shu
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Correspondence to Zhiwen Yu.

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Yu, Z., Zhou, X. & Shu, L. Towards a semantic infrastructure for context-aware e-learning. Multimed Tools Appl 47, 71–86 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-009-0407-4

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