Ontological Modelling for Designing Educational Systems
Joost Breuker, Antoinette J. Muntjewerff, Bert Bredeweg · UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) · 1999
Constructing ontologies in educational design is not really new. The specification of educational goals is what is called now a days an ontology. Although content has always been considered a crucial factor in education, the emphasis in educational research has been on form, as is also pointed out by [Mizogichi et al., 1997]. Ontological engineering for constructing educational systems may look like putting the same old wine in new barrels, but we should be aware that that these new barrels may give a new flavour to this wine. As an example we discuss a core ontology about law, used in the development of educational systems. 1 A core ontology mediates a top ontology, that reflects our common sense understanding of the world, and an ontology that defines the concepts and structures in a domain. A core ontology tells us what a domain is about. The core ontology discussed is FOLaw [Valente, 1995], a functional ontology of law, as applied in PROSA, a system that trains students to solve problems (cases) in adminstrative law. A major conclusion is that emphasis has shifted from skill acquisition to obtaining insight and understanding. Anaother benefit of this ‘ontological view ’ is that types of knowledge distinguished in core ontologies can make up categories that provide the similar decompositions as task analyses, but apparently in a more ‘natural ’ way.