Ontological Engineering in e-Learning

Abdel-Badeeh M. Salem 

Faculty of Computer & Information Sciences
Ain Shams University, Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt
abmsalem@yahoo.com    asalem@eun.eg

The term “ontology” is inherited from philosophy, in which it is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature of being. It began being used in artificial intelligence in the 1980s, and is now frequently used by computing and information science communities. Ontological Engineering refers to the set of activities that concern the ontology development process, the ontology life cycle, the methods and methodologies for building ontologies, and the tool suites and languages that support them. During the last decade, increasing attention has been focused on ontologies. At present, there are applications of ontologies with commercial, industrial, medical, academicals and research focuses.

An ontology provides a common vocabulary for researchers who need to share information in the domain. The main objective of using ontologies is to share knowledge between computers or computers and human. Computers are capable to transmit and present the information stored in files with different formats, but they are not yet compatible to interpret them. To facilitate communication and intelligent processing of information, it is necessary that all actors of the digital space (computers and humans) have the same vocabulary. Ontologies are the foundation of cooperation and the semantical understanding between computers (running a lot of nonhomogenous software programs) and of the cooperation between computers and humans.

Ontologies may be categorized according to the domain they represent or the level of detail they provide. General ontologies represent knowledge at an intermediate level of detail independently of a specific task. In such ontologies, upper levels reflect theories of time and space, for example, and provide notions to which all concepts in existing ontologies are necessarily related. Domain ontologies represent knowledge about a particular part of the world, such as medicine, and should reflect the underlying reality through a theory of the domain represented. Finally, ontologies designed for specific tasks are called application ontologies. Conversely, reference ontologies are developed independently of any particular purpose and serve as modules sharable across domains.

Ontologies' usage in educational systems may be approached from various points of view: as a common vocabulary for multi-agent system, as a chain between heterogeneous educational systems, ontologies for pedagogical resources sharing or for sharing data and ontologies used to mediate the search of the learning materials on the Internet.

The abstract specification of a system is composed of functional interconnected elements. These elements communicate using an interface and a common vocabulary. The online instructional process can be implemented successfully using artificial Intelligence techniques. Sophistical software programs with the following features give the intelligence of the machine: adaptability, flexibility. Learning capacity, reactive capacity, autonomy, collaboration and understanding capacity. This approach enables to solve the complexity and the incertitude of the instructional systems.