Affiliations: Department of Knowledge Systems, Institute of
Scientific and Industrial Research (I.S.I.R), Osaka University, 8-1 Mihogaoka,
Ibaraki, Osaka, 567-0047 Japan. E-mail: {hayashi,miz}@ei.sanken.osaka-u.ac.jp | LICEF Research Center, TÉLUQ-UQAM, 100,
Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal (Quebec) Canada H2X 3P2.
E-mail: jacqueline.bourdeau@licef.teluq.uqam.ca
Abstract: This paper describes the achievements of an innovative eight-year
research program first introduced in Mizoguchi and Bourdeau (2000), which was
aimed at building a theory-aware authoring system by using ontological
engineering. To date, we have proposed OMNIBUS, an ontology that
comprehensively covers different learning/instructional theories and paradigms,
and SMARTIES, a theory-aware and standards-compliant authoring system to create
learning/instructional scenarios based on OMNIBUS. This approach was intended
to bridge the gap between theory and practice in scientific and technological
development, including learning/instruction support. The goals of this study
included the following: that computers would (a) understand a variety of
learning/instructional theories based on their organization, (b) utilize such
understanding to help authors build learning/instructional scenarios, and (c)
make such theoretically sound scenarios interoperable within the framework of
technology standards. This paper suggests an ontological engineering solution
to achieve these three goals and describes the implementation and feasibility
demonstrations of the basic functions of SMARTIES, a solution that supports the
design of learning/instructional scenarios based on multiple theories. Although
the evaluation is far from complete in terms of practical use, we believe that
the results of this study speak to high-level technical challenges of ITS
authoring systems and the other areas of AIED, and therefore constitute a
substantial contribution.
Keywords: ontology, instructional design, learning theories, instructional theories, standard technologies
