Research Topic: The Semantic Web - A Vision for Higher Education

Imagine the following scenario. John just graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Master of Arts in Instructional Technology. John has been out of school and working for six months, and while John takes satisfaction in being finished with school, he has already identified some particular skills he could need to improve for work. John sees that if he could be better at matching pedagogical approaches with new technology trends, not only would he be more competitive for other jobs, but he would really stand out from his workmates, and his boss would take notice. At home, John turns on his PC and checks his email. With that done, John launches his web browser and navigates to learnbot.com. John logs into his account and navigates to his learning profile. Within his profile, John first modifies his learning style preferences from read and test facts to read, hear, watch, problem-based, test concepts, and apprenticeship. Then John sets his initial competency from level 7 to level 3, and his expediency settings from casual to necessary and expedited. John selects the OK button and then selects My Learning Target. A new web page displays, and in the field labeled, “My learning goal is to…” John enters the following:


“Learn about new technologies that can be used as educational tools. Learn new pedagogical strategies and review existing strategies. Match new and existing pedagogical strategies with new technologies. Create realistic training scenarios for sales team.”


John selects the Analyze button and waits while LearnBot considers the information. After a brief moment, a user data field displays below the “My learning goal is to…”, and this field is labeled, “Additional clarifying notes, if you please…” There is already text in the field: it is the text John entered but each sentence John entered is on its own line with a comment in a blue colored font. Following John’s first sentence is the comment, “John, I need more details regarding technologies as educational tools. Please provide additional details.” John places his text entry cursor after the comment and enters the following: “Communication one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. Text, pictures, audio, video compatible. Synchronous and asynchronous. Public domain, trial based, or service that is less than $20 per month per user. Supports high level of interaction.” John adds additional notes after the remaining comments and selects the Analyze button. A graphic symbolizing a process is in progress displays and moves towards completion, and John waits. A few minutes pass, and then a new web page displays. This page is rather simple, but it has in large, friendly letters, “Learn when ready.”


Back to now. This scenario should be of interest to anyone in the field of education, especially since the technology behind this scenario is being developed now. Many call it the Semantic Web, or Web 3.0. Much of the current driving force, however, is from the consumer and healthcare industries, where scenarios surround businesses selling travel or entertainment services and related products to consumers through the Web (Borland, 2007), or as research tools to match drug treatment programs on a personal basis (Feigenbaum, Herman, Hongsermeier, Neumann, & Stephens, 2007).

Attached to this page is the original essay authored in the fall of 2007 at the University of Central Florida. The document includes an extended narrative on the vision and an overview of activities in the field, where educators would seem to be too little involved with the conceptualization and actualization of the technologies as they can be applied to education.