The 5th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-8, 2005, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Interoperability for Digital Learning Resource Management
Kecheng Liu and Yan Fu
Informatics Research Centre, The University of Reading, UK
Tel: +44(0)118 931 6024, Fax: +44(0)118 975 1822
{k.liu, yan.fu}@reading.ac.uk , www.irc.rdg.ac.uk
Abstract
Learning Objects offer flexibility and
adaptability for users to request personalised
information for learning. However, various
applications of learning objects have adapted
the standards in different ways to serve specific
purposes. As a result, it is difficult to reuse and
share distributed and heterogeneous learning
resources across multiple content providers.
Interoperability becomes an important issue to
be addressed in terms of learning resource
management. This paper investigates the
interoperability issues in learning resource
management at three levels and presents
feasible solutions, with a special emphasis on
semantic interoperability.
1. Introduction
The rapid evolution of information technology has
created opportunities to offer various software tools,
protocols and standards to support eLearning where
learners can engage and manage their learning. As a
result, learners demand effective personalised learning
support that facilitates them to achieve their learning
goals [4], rather than merely attend learning materials
that are prepared as fixed modules. This significant
change in learning requirements imposes a new
learning paradigm in learning resource management
[7], [10].
One way to enhance the efficiency of learning
resource management is by means of Learning Objects
[9], [13] and their tagged metadata [8] which make
sharing and reuse of learning resources possible. The
learning objects and metadata standards create
opportunities for content designers to define and
describe learning resources to meet their specific
requirements. This leads to diverse use of learning
objects. Furthermore, various content providers offer
large pools of heterogeneous and distributed learning
1
objects on the Web [18]. Although the flexibility for
sharing and reuse of the objects has increased, it is
merely feasible within certain groups or specific
communities who comply with pre-defined formatting
and semantics of learning resources [2], [3]. Barriers to
interoperability in general still hinder the sharing of
learning resources and subsequently affect the quality
of instructional design [1], [5], [12].
This paper presents an architecture for digital
learning resource management to accommodate
interoperability. A metamodel of learning object and
an Ontology Chart are presented for devising technical
solutions to semantic interoperability at different
levels.
2. Related work
Interoperability has been a basic requirement for the
modern information systems because of 1) increasing
interconnectivity afforded by the Internet and
distributed computing with access to a large number of
independently created and managed information
sources of broad variety; and 2) increasing
specialisation of work, and increasing need to reuse
and share data, information and knowledge [14].
In terms of learning resource management,
interoperability has become an important issue. Great
efforts from SCORM [13], IEEE [8] and IMS [9] have
set eLearning standards, which enable the developers
to design and manage the learning content in a flexible
and customisable manner. A common element in these
standards is the concept of learning objects which
includes characteristics such as granularity, reusability,
interoperability and aggregation. However, the
comprehensive definition of a learning object by IEEE
leads to diverse use by practitioner, which results to
the current metadata becoming inadequate to represent
the types and use of learning resources in a consensual
manner. Learning objects described by metadata in
different formats are still not interoperable to users.
In terms of learning resource management, a group
of learning objects need to be configured and
 The 5th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-8, 2005, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

aggregated in order to achieve certain pedagogy. Resources: A conceptual model of learning

Unfortunately, different people construct a learning
package in their own ways, which is only
understandable within a limited group of people or a
community. This leads to semantic heterogeneity of
learning resource management.
Semantic interoperability of user requirements is
another important issue to be addressed. User
requirements are considered as the driving force and
crucial input to learning resource management.
However, it is not unusual that instead of retrieving
what they desired, users end up with large amount of
irrelevant information from large pools of learning
resources. This is due to the ambiguity of the meaning
of user requirements, which is not correctly understood
by the learning resource management mechanism.
Semantic gap exists between users and available
learning resources.
3. Achieving interoperability of digital
learning resources
The current practice shows that digital resource
management in eLearning can be enabled at three
levels of interoperability—User Requirements
Semantics, Learning Resources Semantics and
Learning Resources Syntax. Figure 1 presents an
architecture to facilitate the interoperability
of distributed learning resources extended
resources is required to represent the semantics of
the resources, their relationships and the
assembling of a group of them to achieve certain
pedagogical goals. Principles and notations of
class diagram in UML have been applied to
represent the conceptual model. Detailed design
issues can be found in section three.
• Semantic Interoperability of User Requirements:
It aims to bridge the gap between users and
learning resource management, which usually sit
in different semantic contexts. To solve this
semantic problem, the method of Semantic
Analysis [11] in organisational semiotics is
applied to analyse and represent semantics of user
requirements in the problem domain. Norms [11]
are derived based on the result of semantic
analysis for technical execution in information
systems.
3.1. Semantic interoperability of learning
resources
From a pedagogical perspective, individual learning
resources have relationships to jointly serve certain
purposes. Without a generic model to represent the
relationships and the pedagogical purposes, individual
#Name
#Learning Styles

from Sun et al. [16], [17]. The lower levels User Person Learner
#Prior Knowledge

provide input to the upper levels; while the Requirements Society

University
Registered

upper levels give instructive and Semantics Organisation Classifying

Organisation classify

incorporated views to the lower level

applications.
• Syntactic Interoperability of Learning
Resources: This level deals with
interoperability issues concerning the
Learning
syntax of individual learning Resources
resources—by the means of learning Semantics
resource metadata. It provides
standard metadata syntax of learning
resources and enables the resources at
any granularity interoperable for
transmission and access in a machine
readable manner. Our early work on
the granularity design of learning
resources [15] is based on the
definition of learning object [8].
Learning LO LO LO LO LO
Metadata for different granularities Resources
LO LO LO LO LO

have been produced by extending Syntax

LOM [8] and populated in the format CO IO PO PO IO AO CO AO

of XML. Figure 1. An architecture for digital learning resource

• Semantic Interoperability of Learning management

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 The 5th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-8, 2005, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
resources cannot be efficiently shared and reused.
Figure 1 presents a metamodel of learning objects at
the content semantic level, which instructs the
configuration of suitable learning resources for certain
learning goals.
• Learning Goals express overall learning aims and
expected achievements. A goal must be
measurable in order to support a learning process
where users conduct learning activities to acquire
knowledge and skills. A goal can be broken into
subgoals which are associated with different
learning objects that require different
competences. All the achievements meeting the
subgoals can be aggregated to address the overall
goals of learning.
• Learning Objects are the essential part for
successful learning. They represent the
educational information and required
achievements. The relationships between the
objects and their granularities are specified in
Rules. The required resources to the learning
objects are defined in Resources.
• Resources are considered as an important element
which indicates physical, abstract and staff
resources needed for designing learning objects
and supporting learning. For example, Rational
Rose CASE tools, as physical resource, may be
required while UML is studied and practised.
Certain learning objects may be in different media
forms. When they are presented to users, adequate
technologies are necessary. These types of
resources must be specified in Resources.
• Rules define constraints, conditions and policies
for how the learning objects are configured and
assembled. There are content selection rules,
content sequencing rules and optimisation rules.
The metamodel presents the requirement
specifications and constrains which can be employed
by the learning objects developers. The instances
conforming to this metamodel can warrant the
resource semantic interoperability.
3.2. Semantic interoperability of user
requirements
Content semantic interoperability focuses on the
semantics of managing heterogeneous learning
resources. Once learning resources are available, user
requirements is another issue to be addressed. It is
essential to assure that the meaning of user
requirements can be unambiguously understood and
satisfied by appropriate learning resources.
Requirements semantic interoperability conducts a
3
Semantic Analysis [11] of user requirements and
formalises norms in the problem domain.
3.2.1. Semantic analysis of the problem domain
A Semantic Analysis (SA) begins with the phase of
problem definition. It is done through investigation of
relevant documents and interviews with domain
experts and potential users. The text below is the
description of a problem domain of learning resource
management in Higher Education (HE), which we
shall conduct an analysis to establish a model of user
requirements semantics.
“A learner must register in a university and enrol in
a degree course. The learner is obliged to take all
compulsory modules required by the course in order to
get a degree. The learner can take any additional
modules irrespective of the course.
A course consists of modules. Each module is on a
subject, as classified by the classifying organisation.
For example, the subjects in Computer Science are
classified by the ACM. A module includes a number of
topics, each of which relates to at least one assessment
and optionally practicals. A topic consists of an
introduction, concepts and examples. There may be
pedagogical constraints concerning the structure and
sequence of topics. A module may have pre-requisites
or co-requisites, which are also modules. A learner
must complete the pre-requisites before taking the
module, and must take the co-requisites together with
the module at the same time.
Learning resources of modules, topics, assessments,
practicals are provided by different content providers,
which are organisations such as a university. The
resources are stored in local or remote repositories of
the organisations. A learner can have access to
learning resources from any content provider.”
By using the method of SA, this problem
description is analysed by specifying agents,
affordances and their ontological dependency. An
agent can be an individual, cultural group, language
community or society. Affordance is a repertoire of
behaviour that its agent can afford. Some affordances
can be possible only if certain other affordances are
available. This kind of dependency is ontological.
Figure 2 shows an Ontology Chart (OC) to capture
user’s requirements and present the semantics. The OC
delineates the context which involves concepts and
terminology used in this problem domain. The
concepts and terminology according to the ontological
relationships determine semantics contextually,
because every word or expression is linked with its
antecedents on their left hand side in the ontology
chart. For example, a learner can be defined in many
 The 5th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-8, 2005, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

ways, someone who #Name

#Learning Styles
reads a cookery book can #Prior Knowledge

be seen as a learner. But Person Learner

take
when the OC specifies a
circumstance of learning Society University
Registered
Enrol in

in a university, the Organisation Classifying

Organisation
meaning of a learner can classify

be uniquely determined #Specialisation

by the ontological links Content

Provider Course
Subject
between terms in this #Module Code
context: someone Provide #Level
#Credits Run
registered in a university Own in

and during the Module

in
registration period. In the Use
graphic representation, Learning Resource
in

the antecedents are Repository

Topic

placed on the left of the # URL

at
Assessment
on
on
dependents. In other Practical
words, the left-right of
Introduction
positioning reflects the of
Concept
ontological of
Example
dependencies. The #Prior Knowledge

‘society’ is the root agent Figure 2 An Ontology Chart for learning resource management
in the chart. All other
agents (in rectangulars) and affordances (in ellipses)
are ontologically dependent on the society, which
means all of them are defined in the context of the
society. The ‘learner’ is a role name for a ‘person’ who
is ‘registered’ at a ‘university’.
The ‘learner’ has determiners, which are prefixed
by a hash sign ‘#’ in the chart. Determiners are
attributes that enable one to describe an agent or
affordance. The ‘learning style’ and ‘prior knowledge’
are determiners of a learner, reflecting user
requirements in this problem domain. There are also
determiners for ‘repository’, ‘module’, ‘course’, and
‘prior knowledge’.
The structure of the ontological dependency
constrained by ontological relationships determines
exactly the boundaries of each concept. The
‘registered’ is an affordance that is ontologically
dependent on the antecedents—the ‘organisation’ and
the ‘person’. It means a registration never exists
beyond the existence of a ‘learner’ (the role of a
person) and a ‘university’ (the role of an organisation).
The same applies to the affordance ‘enrol in’, which
depends on the existence of a ‘learner’ and a ‘course’.
Both the affordance ‘course’ and ‘module’ are
antecedents of ‘run’, which means a course runs its
modules only when there is a course and modules. The
affordance ‘take’ depends on the agent ‘person’ and
affordance ‘run’, which means that a learner can take
modules that are run in a course. The affordances
‘enrol in’ and ‘take’ exist independently. This indicates
that a learner can take a module, which does not
necessarily belong to the course that he enrols in. This
is due to personalised learning, where a learner is in
the centre of learning process. A learner is allowed to
learn beyond what educational requirements have
required.
The semantics of the management of different
kinds of learning resources is also represented in the
chart. The affordances ‘topic’ and ‘module’ make it
possible that a topic exists ‘in’ a module. An
assessment does not exist independently in a module. It
is always attached with the topic, on which it assesses.
Therefore, three antecedents are involved in order to
describe this. An ‘assessment’ exists ‘on’ its
corresponding ‘topic’ ‘in’ the ‘module’. Similarly, a
‘practical’ exists ‘on’ its corresponding ‘topic’ ‘in’ the
‘module’. An ‘introduction’ and ‘topic’ afford the ‘of’,
which means an introduction is included in a topic.
The ‘university’ affords the existence of ‘module’,
‘assessment’, ‘practical’, ‘introduction’, and
‘example’. However, ‘topic’ and ‘concept’ exist in the
society, because they are recognised by a large group
of people, who are not necessarily within a university.
A ‘module’ in a ‘university’ ‘uses’ ‘learning
resources’ in the society. The ‘learning resource’ is
provided by a ‘content provider’ and stored ‘at’ the
provider’s ‘repository’. This means when a learner
takes a module of a course, the content of the module
is not necessarily provided by a particular university.
Personalisation is achieved by allowing learners to

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 The 5th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 5-8, 2005, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
take any available learning resource, which satisfies
their requirements.
The Semantic Analysis defines the boundary of the
concern and identifies the basic patterns of behaviour
in terms of affordances. An Ontology Chart as a
representation must be read many times by the analysts
with reference to the problem description and other
business knowledge gained through various channels
[11].
3.2.2. Analysing norms in managing learning
resources
A Norm Analysis [11] is usually carried out on the
basis of the result of the Semantic Analysis. Norms
describe how an agent can judge the situation and take
actions. Norms specified here are kinds other than the
ontological dependency imposed on the antecedent and
dependent [11]. All the norms are linked to the
relevant affordances as constraints, for example, the
maximum number of modules for a learner to take in a
course. Two types of norms, pedagogical norms and
administrative norms, are analysed in the context of
digital learning resource management.
Pedagogical norms focus on educational regulations
and rules in managing learning resources, for example:
• A pre-requisite for a module must be taken in
advance.
• A co-requisite for a module must be taken at the
same time as the module.
• The level of learners’ prior knowledge determines
whether the pre-requisites need to be taken.
• Learners’ learning style determines the selection
of types of learning content.
• Each module includes zero or more practicals.
Administrative norms are business constraints
which regulate the executive process of learning
resource management, for example:
• A learner must enrol in a degree course of a
university.
• A learner must take all compulsory modules
required for the degree course.
• A learner may take compulsory and additional
modules from any resources of any approved
content provider.
• Each course requires a certain number of credits
accrued from modules.
• Each module attracts a certain number of credits.
A norm as a constraint in an information system is a
prescription or prohibition of the behaviour of a
member (e.g., an agent) of the Universe of Discourse
(e.g., an organisation or a cultural group –
interpretation of the authors) [6]. Norms control the
5
behaviour of the agents and are reflected as constraints
in the conceptual models and incorporated into the
technical information systems. These norms will be
programmed and incorporated into operations in a
computer system.
4. Conclusions and future work
An architecture of interoperability for learning
resource management is presented to enable learning
resource sharing and reuse in a heterogeneous
environment. This aims ultimately to reinforce quality
of instructional design and learning. Technical issues
are discussed at different levels of interoperability.
Special focus is on resolving semantic interoperability.
A metamodel of learning objects is represented to
enable semantic interoperability for heterogeneous
learning resources. The semantics of user requirements
is analysed and represented by the method of Semantic
Analysis. Norms for managing learning resources are
devised based on the result of Semantic Analysis. The
results of Semantic Analysis and Norm Analysis of
user requirements will be integrated with the design for
interoperability of resource semantics. Relevant
research has been embarked upon, with an expectation
of incorporating the outcomes to the overall
architecture within a short-term.
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