How semantic technologies improve online education: a project of scientists from the ITMO University
Learning from ITMO University professors is possible without admission - it’s enough to sign up for a massive online course. The University issues such courses not only on domestic platforms (such as “Open Education”), but also on the edX platform, which was established by MIT and Harvard in 2012.
For example, last year the English-language course “How to Win Coding Competitions: Secrets of Champions” started on the edX platform (we have already told about it earlier: 1 , 2 ). However, ITMO University not only creates interesting courses, but also seeks to improve the work of the educational platforms themselves. Scientists from ITMO University together with a colleague from Yandex LLC have developed a solution that allows to introduce semantic technologies into the educational process on edX.
/ Photo by Craig Sunter / CC
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The ability to analyze data from thousands of students is one of the advantages of mass online courses. However, a number of difficulties are associated with mass character: platforms need to take into account more and more requirements from their diverse audience. Some of the questions that arise when creating courses and working with students are solved by the community of developers, teachers and scientists designing and leading courses - for this edX has an open source platform Open edX. It was her ability that our researchers used in their work.
Scientists of the international laboratory “Intellectual methods of information processing and semantic technologies” (Information Science and Semantic Technologies, ISST) of the ITMO University together with their colleague from Yandex worked on the project. In Russia, ISST is one of the foremost teams that deal with issues of semantic technologies and ontological engineering.
Until recently, courses on educational platforms were perceived as an “indivisible complex of knowledge” - in order to understand some narrow issue that is addressed in the course, you must complete the course (or at least get to the required lecture). In this regard, “interdisciplinary students” had a hard time: in such a format it is difficult to find answers to specific questions that are covered only in a small part of one or another course. And it is all the more difficult to study a question that is being considered in several adjacent areas (and therefore, in several courses unrelated to each other).
/ Structure of the online course. Material from the presentation “Metadata Extraction from Open edX Online Courses Using Dynamic Mapping of NoSQL Queries” (Dmitry Muromtsev, Alexey Romanov, Dmitry Volchek, Fedor Kozlov)
The task of scientists from ITMO University was to help students and create a solution that not only allows to form a “custom set of courses” in accordance with the issue of interest, but also to do so taking into account all the technological features of a modern educational platform.
Scientists solved the problem of semantic presentation of the educational content of the online course. As a result, they managed to create a model that describes all the characteristics of the course: its content, usage scenarios, participants, etc. Such an approach allows to “disassemble” the course into components, to describe and structure its content in accordance with the developed ontology.
As Dmitry Volchek, a graduate student at the ITMO University Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, tells, the algorithm analyzes the course content (text materials, video lectures subtitles), identifies keywords (“domain concepts”), after which the concepts are marked on the prepared ontology. As a result, it becomes possible to show how the courses from different disciplines are interconnected, to find common topics in them, to check whether the selected content is reused in other lectures and materials.
This approach allows the creators of educational materials to assess the quality of the course: a comparison of concepts in tests and lecture materials gives an idea of ​​whether the level of control tasks corresponds to the volume of theory that was given out at lectures. And students have the opportunity to find courses from related areas or to look at the studied question in a new way: for example, to understand how a particular concept is considered in various disciplines.
/ Ontological model (course and users). Material from the presentation “Metadata Extraction from Open edX Online Courses Using Dynamic Mapping of NoSQL Queries” (Dmitry Muromtsev, Alexey Romanov, Dmitry Volchek, Fedor Kozlov)
Now the project is at the testing stage, however, the first results were already presented at the Open EdX Conference 2017 profile conference (the conference was held in Madrid this May and gathered developers, analysts and educational specialists working with the edX platform). In addition, research results have already been published and research papers ( 1 , 2 ).
For example, last year the English-language course “How to Win Coding Competitions: Secrets of Champions” started on the edX platform (we have already told about it earlier: 1 , 2 ). However, ITMO University not only creates interesting courses, but also seeks to improve the work of the educational platforms themselves. Scientists from ITMO University together with a colleague from Yandex LLC have developed a solution that allows to introduce semantic technologies into the educational process on edX.
/ Photo by Craig Sunter / CC
')
The ability to analyze data from thousands of students is one of the advantages of mass online courses. However, a number of difficulties are associated with mass character: platforms need to take into account more and more requirements from their diverse audience. Some of the questions that arise when creating courses and working with students are solved by the community of developers, teachers and scientists designing and leading courses - for this edX has an open source platform Open edX. It was her ability that our researchers used in their work.
The project team
Scientists of the international laboratory “Intellectual methods of information processing and semantic technologies” (Information Science and Semantic Technologies, ISST) of the ITMO University together with their colleague from Yandex worked on the project. In Russia, ISST is one of the foremost teams that deal with issues of semantic technologies and ontological engineering.
Task
Until recently, courses on educational platforms were perceived as an “indivisible complex of knowledge” - in order to understand some narrow issue that is addressed in the course, you must complete the course (or at least get to the required lecture). In this regard, “interdisciplinary students” had a hard time: in such a format it is difficult to find answers to specific questions that are covered only in a small part of one or another course. And it is all the more difficult to study a question that is being considered in several adjacent areas (and therefore, in several courses unrelated to each other).
/ Structure of the online course. Material from the presentation “Metadata Extraction from Open edX Online Courses Using Dynamic Mapping of NoSQL Queries” (Dmitry Muromtsev, Alexey Romanov, Dmitry Volchek, Fedor Kozlov)
The task of scientists from ITMO University was to help students and create a solution that not only allows to form a “custom set of courses” in accordance with the issue of interest, but also to do so taking into account all the technological features of a modern educational platform.
Decision
Scientists solved the problem of semantic presentation of the educational content of the online course. As a result, they managed to create a model that describes all the characteristics of the course: its content, usage scenarios, participants, etc. Such an approach allows to “disassemble” the course into components, to describe and structure its content in accordance with the developed ontology.
As Dmitry Volchek, a graduate student at the ITMO University Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, tells, the algorithm analyzes the course content (text materials, video lectures subtitles), identifies keywords (“domain concepts”), after which the concepts are marked on the prepared ontology. As a result, it becomes possible to show how the courses from different disciplines are interconnected, to find common topics in them, to check whether the selected content is reused in other lectures and materials.
This approach allows the creators of educational materials to assess the quality of the course: a comparison of concepts in tests and lecture materials gives an idea of ​​whether the level of control tasks corresponds to the volume of theory that was given out at lectures. And students have the opportunity to find courses from related areas or to look at the studied question in a new way: for example, to understand how a particular concept is considered in various disciplines.
/ Ontological model (course and users). Material from the presentation “Metadata Extraction from Open edX Online Courses Using Dynamic Mapping of NoSQL Queries” (Dmitry Muromtsev, Alexey Romanov, Dmitry Volchek, Fedor Kozlov)
Now the project is at the testing stage, however, the first results were already presented at the Open EdX Conference 2017 profile conference (the conference was held in Madrid this May and gathered developers, analysts and educational specialists working with the edX platform). In addition, research results have already been published and research papers ( 1 , 2 ).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/331410/
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