International Forum of Educational Technology & Society

Review: Semantic Web and Education

Reviewed Work(s): Semantic Web and Education by Vladan Devedzic
Review by: Fuhua Oscar Lin
Source: Journal of Educational Technology & Society, Vol. 11, No. 3 (July 2008), pp. 292-
293
Published by: International Forum of Educational Technology & Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.11.3.292
Accessed: 20-02-2018 13:56 UTC

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Lin, F. O. (2008). Book review: Semantic Web and Education (Vladan Devedzic). Educational Technology & Society, 11(3),
292-293.

Semantic Web and Education

(Book Review)

Reviewer:
Fuhua Oscar Lin
Professor in Computing and Information Systems
Athabasca University, Canada
oscarl@athabascau.ca
Tel: 1-866-539-8664

Textbook Details:
Semantic Web and Education
Vladan Devedzic
Springer’s Integrated Series in Information Systems
ISBN: 0-387-35416-6

Because of the Web, we have Web-based Education. Putting Web based Education in the context of the Semantic
Web creates the idea of the new generation WBE, or Semantic WBE (SWBE).

The Book “Semantic Web and Education” by Prof. Vladan Devedzic of at the University of Belgrade discusses how
to use the results and technology of new fields of research and development, such as Semantic Web and Web
intelligence, to make Web-based Education more effective and more appealing to learners, teachers, and authors
alike.
The author integrates the examinations of learning-oriented topics such as learner modeling, collaborative learning,
learning management, learning communities, ontological engineering of Web-based learning, and related topics with
these technical topics.

It is a thorough and highly useful presentation on the confluence of the technical aspects of the Semantic Web and
the field of Education or the art of teaching. The book will be of considerable interest to researchers and students in
the field of Artificial Intelligence, Information Systems, and Education.

What impressed me first in Chapter 1 are the clear explanations of many commonly-used terms such as Web-based
education, e-learning, distance education, virtual classrooms, and intelligent educational systems.

Chapter 2 introduces Semantic Web technologies and explains common prerequisites for creating intelligent Web-
based Education systems and applications.

Chapter 3 explains the setting for SWBE replying on existing technologies and technological trends, and starting
from the needs and perspectives of the major categories of actors in Web-based Education.

Chapter 4 discusses the architectural issues including architectural reference model, learning object structure and
organization, current trends and technologies, and open learning environments.

Chapter 5 discusses the relationship between Learning Technology Standardization efforts and Semantic Web Based
Education (SWBE), in particular Semantic Web Issues related to Learning Technology Standards. This chapter is
very useful to me as the author pointed out some additional requirements that need to be addressed by standards and
specifications. For example, the author mentioned that current standards are not published with formal semantic into
existing standards and as a consequence they do not support reasoning and semantic search based on Learning Object
metadata. Therefore we should introduce formal semantics into existing standards. However, it is easier said than
done.

Chapter 6 deals with a central issue of SWBE --- personalization. Learner modeling enables personalization. The
challenge is to capture useful information from the interactions by learners and SWBE systems as automatically as

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possible, with minimum efforts from the learner. I enjoyed reading the case study TANGRAM, described in Section
3 of the chapter. It illustrates the process of ontological engineering of SWBE systems by explaining the design of
the TANGRAM environment and by suggesting some more general engineering guidelines for building SWBE
systems.

Chapter 7 further addresses the important topic --- Ontological engineering, which is a central process in developing
any SWBE application or system. It is an excellent material to learn about the structure, context, usability, and
technological background for using ontologies in education. This chapter introduces several new tools specific to
SWBE that help designers and authors develop their applications and learning material. It also discusses ontology
visualization techniques and tools, as well as automatic construction of educational ontologies.

Chapter 8 illustrates the use of SWBE principles, architectures, and technology in practical applications. It covers
learning management, collaborative learning, and learning communities. Two newly emerged research topics,
personalized educational services and learners’ personality, are also introduced in this chapter. I feel that the
previous experience from architectural design of more traditional e-Learning systems, virtual classrooms, Web-based
ITSs, and AEHSs are very useful to my current research, intelligence in adaptive learning systems.

While many of the related technologies and standards are still under development, Prof. Devedzic’s this book already
offers both a broad conceptual introduction and lots of points to future application scenarios for researchers in
academia and industry as well as for developers of Web-based educational systems. It is an extremely valuable
addition to the AI and Software Engineering literature.

293

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