Leveraging Semantic Web Technologies to Enhance Individual and Collaborative Learning

Despite the popularity of the World Wide Web as a resource of hypertext-based learning materials, web-based learning is often associated with many challenges. One of these challenge is the ability to find learning material that can best match the user interests with minimal effort. This paper presents SWLinker, a distributed system that leverages ontological engineering to enable users to access complementary and in-depth knowledge resources through a standard Web browser. The proposed approach supports real-time interpretation of any web pages existing on the Internet by attaching semantic layers of knowledge chunks. It also enables learners to discover domain terms in a wider context by embedding portals that offer a grand vision of all instructionally-related concepts and sub topics. Learners are still able to query knowledge bases and associate knowledge with what they are currently browsing but, crucially, without leaving the original site and without interrupting the ongoing learning process. Furthermore, SWLinker is capable of intelligently linking learners engaged in shared browsing activities. The user-matching in the system utilizes an ontology-based approach to measure the semantic relatedness between the pages being browsed in order to discover users with semantically related interests.