Ontology-Driven Adaptive and Pervasive Learning Environments – APLEs: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

This paper reports an interdisciplinary research project on adaptive and pervasive learning environments. Its interdisciplinary nature is built on a firm collaboration between three main research domains, namely, instructional science, methodology, and computer science. In this paper, we first present and discuss mutual, as well as distinctive, vision and goals of each domain from a computer science perspective. Thereafter, we argue for an ontology-driven approach employing ontologies at run-time and development-time where formalized ontologies and rules are considered as main medium of adaptivity, user involvement, and automatic application development. Finally, we introduce a prototype domain context ontology for item-based learning environments and demonstrate its run-time and development-time uses.