Supporting information access in e‐learning by integrating digital libraries and ontology

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the integration of digital library (DL) technologies with ontology-based knowledge representation in providing semantic rich information access (IA) in e-learning. DL technologies have powerful and flexible content management and access functionalities, whereas ontology helps teachers and students to link content materials to their learning objectives. This paper demonstrates that the integration provides a powerful and meaningful e-learning environment. Design/methodology/approach -DiLight is designed as an interactive e-learning system that integrates DL and ontology technologies. By conducting comparative experiments involving DiLight in students' actual learning process, the authors examined the advantages and limitations of DiLight in e-learning. Findings -Compared to a widely used e-learning environment, DiLight can provide significantly better support for students' complex IA tasks because DiLight is more useful for relationship discovery and problem solving. DiLight is also effective even when students were either less familiar with tasks or felt that they were more difficult. There is no single best access method for all learning situations. Therefore, multiple IA methods should be built into e-learning systems. Although most of time the search was the first choice of the students, ontology-based methods were useful in supporting them to complete their tasks too. Originality/value -This is a comparative empirical study using an interactive e-learning system called DiLight to explore the usage of integrated DL and ontology in e-learning. The experiment results demonstrate the value of the multiple IA methods provided by DL, and the usefulness of integrating DL with ontology.

Factors affecting the adoption of integrated semantic digital libraries (SDLs): a systematic review

“…User-centered factors. User-centered approaches, personalized subject category service, personalized assistance to users in finding required content (Kao and Wu, 2012), social network-centric perspectives, open access movement (Cole et al, 2017;Saarti and Touminen, 2021), meaningful connections among individuals in a unified discovery place, support in teaching and learning via interactive and engaging ways (Pattuelli and Miller, 2015), emerging smart technologies, bridging the gap between the services offered by the libraries and the rapidly changing and competing needs of the humans, data curation (Gul and Bano, 2019), perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use (Yan et al, 2016), the effectiveness of learning process, powerful and flexible collection management capabilities and knowledgerich contents representation were key factors in motivating library leadership to adopt integrated semantic digital libraries to satisfy changing needs of the users' community (He et al, 2010).…”

Impact of a Digital Repository on Producing e-Courses for Mathematics Teachers

“…There are many terms for digital repositories, such as self or free archives, free access repositories, future library management systems, and institutional repositories. All the previous terms have the same meaning, as indicated by several studies (e.g., Azmy, 2014;He et al, 2010). Digital repositories aim to create a reliable and trustworthy collection of information that provides minimal services for searching and controlling digital contents.…”

Information integration in libraries

“…Sens and Bluemel (2009) develop a project Prototypical Operation of Common Documents for automated indexing, storing, searching and retrieving non-textual media. He et al (2010) integrate digital library technologies with ontology-based knowledge representation for providing semantic-rich information access. Kao and Wu (2012) propose a personalized information and knowledge integration platform for digital library (PIKIPDL), which can suggest materials for readers and construct knowledge contents in a hierarchical structure.…”