Modeling the Organizational Aspects of Learning Objects in Semantic Web Approaches to Information Systems

The concept of learning object has become a central notion of the majority of current approaches to e-learning that focus on reusability and automation. Learning object metadata can be considered a driver for mediated resource location, thus fostering the development of digital repositories and intermediaries. Such entities are aimed to collect, store and expose rich learning object descriptions. This has lead to approaches for Semantic Web applications to e-learning that explicitly model learning objects as instances inside formal ontologies, thus representing metadata as logics-based sentences, with such sentences describing digital artifacts in terms of shared conceptualizations of diverse domains. Nonetheless, existing models do not explicitly consider the aspect of “value” inherent to learning processes and artifacts as components inside the context of organizational Information Systems. The Information Systems view regarding learning objects requires a consideration of the learning behavior of the organization as a whole, in which learning objects become critical resources linked to strategic or contingent organizational needs. This paper examines the role of learning objects as elements inside Information Systems, and provides a semantic definition for them that integrate the various aspects of learning processes in the organizational context. In addition, the main elements of a proposed formal ontology of learning objects inside organizational Information Systems are discussed by means of scenarios.