Finding and reusing learning materials with multimedia similarity search and social networks

Abstract

The authors describe how content-based multimedia search technologies can be used to help learners find new materials and learning pathways by identifying semantic relationships between educational resources in a social learning network. This helps users – both learners and educators – to explore and find material to support their learning aims. Exciting new technologies are emerging for designing and deploying multi-modal, interactive educational tools such as video, 3D models, games, remote sensors or collaborative community-created resources (e.g. wikis). With the increasing availability of open educational resources in online, semantically marked-up and socially connected spaces, users are building their own learning pathways by exploring and remixing content. In this article the authors look at how the integration of multimedia search into the SocialLearn platform for shared learning spaces can contribute to this vision.

Keywords:

• SocialLearn
• Social Web
• Multimedia Information Retrieval

Acknowledgements

The contributions of members of the SocialLearn team at The Open University – Darius Augaitis, Thang Dang, Thanh Le – in developing the toolbar for integration with the SocialLearn platform is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. SocialLearn, http://sociallearn.net.

2. ROLE project, http://www.role-project.eu.

3. ARIADNE project, http://www.ariadne-eu.org.

4. OpenScout, skill-based scouting of open user-generated and community-improved content for management education and training, http://www.openscout.net.

5. LUCERO project, http://lucero-project.info.

6. The SIFT method is restricted for commercial use. We use it, as permitted, for research purposes only.

7. The script to apply the transformations is available from http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/suzanne/transform.sh.