Jordi Conesa

Improving web-query processing through semantic knowledge

Although search engines are very useful for obtaining information from the World Wide Web, users still have problems obtaining the most relevant information when processing their web queries. Prior research has attempted to use different types of knowledge to improve web querying processing with various levels of success. This research presents a methodology for processing web queries that employs semantic knowledge about different application domains from ResearchCyc, as well as linguistic knowledge from WordNet. An analysis of different queries from different application domains using the semantic and linguistic knowledge illustrates how more relevant results can be obtained.

A method for pruning ontologies in the development of conceptual schemas of information systems

In the past, most conceptual schemas of information systems have been developed essentially from scratch. Currently, however, several research projects are considering an emerging approach that tries to reuse as much as possible the knowledge included in existing ontologies. Using this approach, conceptual schemas would be developed as refinements of (more general) ontologies. However, when the refined ontology is large, a new problem that arises using this approach is the need of pruning the concepts in that ontology that are superfluous in the final conceptual schema. This paper proposes a new method for pruning ontologies in this approach. We also show how to adapt the method to prune ontologies in other contexts. Our method is general and it can be adapted to most conceptual modeling languages. We give the complete details of its adaptation to the UML. On the other hand, the method is fully automatic. The method has been implemented. We illustrate the method by means of its application to a case study that refines the Cyc ontology.

Building Conceptual Schemas by Refining General Ontologies

In practice, most conceptual schemas of information systems and databases are developed essentially from scratch. This paper deals with a new approach to that development, consisting on the refinement of a general ontology. We identify and characterize the three activities required to develop a conceptual schema from a general ontology, that we call refinement, pruning and refactoring. The focus of the paper is on the differences of the new approach with respect to the traditional one. The pruning activity may be automated. We formalize it and present a method for its realization. Besides, we identify a particular problem that appears during the refactoring activity, determining whether two types are redundant, and provide two sufficient conditions for it. We illustrate the approach with the development of a conceptual schema by refinement of the Cyc ontology. However, our results apply to any general ontology. The conceptual modeling language we have used is the UML, but we believe that our results could be applied to any similar language.

Usability of upper level ontologies: The case of ResearchCyc

Abstract Repositories of knowledge about the real world are intended to serve as surrogates for the meaning and context of terms and concepts. These are being developed at two levels: (1) individual domain ontologies that capture concepts about a particular application domain; and (2) upper level ontologies that contain massive amounts of knowledge about the real world and are domain independent. This paper analyzes ResearchCyc, a version of Cyc, that attempts to capture common sense knowledge of the real world. Experience in applying ResearchCyc to web query processing is reported and the insights acquired are used to generate suggestions for improving the usability of upper level ontologies.

Pruning Ontologies in the Development of Conceptual Schemas of Information Systems

In the past, most conceptual schemas of information systems have been developed essentially from scratch. Currently, however, several research projects are considering an emerging approach that tries to reuse as much as possible the knowledge included in existing ontologies. Using this approach, conceptual schemas would be developed as refinements of (more general) ontologies. However, when the refined ontology is large, a new problem that arises using this approach is the need of pruning the concepts in that ontology that are superfluous in the final conceptual schema. This paper proposes a new method for pruning ontologies in this approach. We show the advantages of our method with respect to similar pruning methods developed in other contexts. Our method is general and it can be adapted to most conceptual modeling languages. We give the complete details of its adaptation to the UML. On the other hand, the method is fully automatic. The method has been implemented. We illustrate the method by means of its application to a case study that refines the Cyc ontology.

Design of an emotion aware e-learning system

Sense and analysis of users emotions has appeared in the focus of the research agenda during the last decade with many applications, especially in learning. The latter is informed by the study of emotions that has been attained for many years. In the current paper, we first review prominent theories and models of learning with respect to students emotions and emotion recognition technologies and then we analyse the design of a system endowed with emotion awareness features. Part of the work we present, is based on the results of a pilot CSCL project, named emot-project. In our last section, we define an agenda for future work.

Extending Learning Objects by Means of Social Networking

Learning objects have been the promise of providing people with high quality learning resources. Initiatives such as MIT OpenCourseWare, MERLOT and others have shown the real possibilities of creating and sharing knowledge through Internet. Thousands of educational resources are available through learning object repositories. We indeed live in an age of content abundance, and content can be considered as infrastructure for building adaptive and personalized learning paths, promoting both formal and informal learning. Nevertheless, although most educational institutions are adopting a more open approach, publishing huge amounts of educational resources, the reality is that these resources are barely used in other educational contexts. This paradox can be partly explained by the difficulties in adapting such resources with respect to language, e-learning standards and specifications and, finally, granularity. Furthermore, if we want our learners to use and take advantage of learning object repositories, we need to provide them with additional services than just browsing and searching for resources. Social networks can be a first step towards creating an open social community of learning around a topic or a subject. In this paper we discuss and analyze the process of using a learning object repository and building a social network on the top of it, with respect to the information architecture needed to capture and store the interaction between learners and resources in form of learning object metadata

Providing emotion awareness and affective feedback to virtualised collaborative learning scenarios

The enrichment of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) systems with emotion awareness features (detect emotion patterns and respond affectively) opens a window towards an authentic social interaction and learning experience. In the current paper, we first review prominent emotion theories and models with respect to learning, detection techniques and affective feedback strategies, and then we present a system’s design and implementation that provides collaborators with a usable, web tool for self-reporting of emotions. In response to the user’s emotions, the system activates an animated, virtual assistant that employs expressive faces and synthesised speech to provide affective and task-based feedback. The specific tool was customised and adapted to the virtualised collaborative session (VCS) system for the needs of an experiment that we run in the Open University of Catalonia. The respective results and findings are presented and discussed.

Exploiting the Semantic Web to Represent Information from On-line Collaborative Learning

Abstract In this paper we propose a framework for modeling, representing populating and enriching information from online collaborative sessions within Web forums. The main piece of the framework is an ontology called Collaborative Session Conceptual Schema (CS2) that allows for specifying collaborative sessions. The paper describes the information this ontology needs to know, the alignment of the ontology with the ontologies of relevant specifications, how the ontology can be automatically populated from the data existent in forums, and how to model such data about what is happening during the collaboration by using a dialogue-based model. This model is based on primitive exchange moves found in any forum posts, which are then categorized at different description levels with the aim to effectively collect and classify the type and intention of the forum posts. An experiment has been conducted to assess the validity and usefulness of the presented approach. The research reported in this paper is currently...

Towards Software Infrastructure for the Systematic Virtualization of Collaborative Learning Sessions

This paper proposes the provision of software infrastructure to support new types of pedagogically augmented collaborative learning resources by means of an innovative software platform called Virtualized Collaborative Sessions (VCS). The VCS approach helps meet challenging pedagogical requirements in online collaborative learning, such as increasing students engagement and learning performance during the collaboration. In turn, the systematic application of the VCS platform enriched with semantic technologies enables e-learning developers to embed successful collaborative learning experiences from external learning tools in a software reuse fashion. The platform is prototyped and successfully tested in real environments, thus showing the software reuse capability and the pedagogical benefits of the VCS approach.