ENSEMBLE

Call for Papers: “Teaching and Learning with Semantic Technologies”

Guest Editors:  Patrick Carmichael (Liverpool John Moores University) and Katy Jordan  (Technology Enhanced Learning Programme)

Papers are invited for a special edition of Technology, Pedagogy and Education exploring the potential of the broad ‘semantic web’ vision and of specific semantic technologies to enhance teaching and learning in different educational sectors and settings.

Aims and Scope

The emphasis in this special edition will be on teaching and learning practices and the discourses that accompany them, rather than on the development of technical ontologies, semantic enhancements to resource description or educational administration.   This would be an edition which promotes better understanding of how emergent semantic technologies might support and enhance teaching and learning, and that invites educators to consider how their own practice might be transformed, what barriers might exist to adoption of these new technologies, and their implications for learning environments, relationships and outcomes.

Papers are invited that address questions including, but not limited to:

• How are visions of a future ‘semantic web’ and the affordances of its associated semantic technologies understood by teachers and learners in different educational settings?
• How might access to a linked ‘web of data’ transform the nature and scope of learning activities?  What hitherto unrealised opportunities for teaching and learning might now be realised?
• How can the opportunities to access large collections of distributed data be reconciled with predetermined learning outcomes?
• How do teacher and learner roles, relationships and identities change in teaching and learning environments enabled by semantic technologies?
• What are the barriers to adoption of semantic technologies in teaching and learning environments? Are these institutional, epistemological or technological?  Or some combination of these and other factors?
• How can teacher and learner experiences of the introduction of ‘Web 1.0’ and ‘Web 2.0’ into teaching and learning environments inform understanding and enactment of ‘Web 3.0’ – the semantic web?
• What are the implications of semantic technologies for assessment, transitions into different learning environments and for existing systems such as e-Portfolios or Virtual Learning Environments?

Participation

Initial enquiries may be made to Patrick Carmichael at w.p.carmichael@ljmu.ac.uk and a 500 word (maximum) summary of the proposed paper should be submitted to the editor by 11 December 2009.    Successful authors will be notified by 8 January.  Full papers will then be required by July 2010 for final submission following peer review by November 2010.  Normal journal procedures and formatting requirements apply. All papers will be double-blind peer reviewed.    Submitting authors are particularly urged to consider issues of copyright clearance in relation to images and representations of other web content.

The Ensemble Project was represented at the inaugural workshop of SemHE (Semantic Web Applications for Teaching and Learning Support in Higher Education), at the EC-TEL conference in Nice on September 30th 2009.  This brought together researchers and developers from nine countries.

Members of the Ensemble project team presented two papers:

• Patrick Carmichael and Agustina Martinez Garcia. Semantic Technologies to Support Teaching and Learning with Cases: Challenges and Opportunities
• Michael Tscholl, Frances Tracy and Patrick Carmichael. Case Methods, Pedagogical Innovation and Semantic Technologies

There was also a display of posters from the project showing work in progress and pilot projects.

For full details of SemHE see the website at: http://www.semhe.org

There is a report of the workshop at: http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/about/news/2752

The Ensemble project held a well-attended and successful ‘user event’ at St John’s College, Cambridge on 8th January.  This involved members of the project team and its advisory group, members of participating departments at both Cambridge University and City University London, and representatives of other groups and organisations interested in collaborating with the project as it explores the potential of semantic technologies to enhance learning in higher education.

This group heard about work of the the project from Patrick Carmichael (Cambridge University) and Uma Patel (City University London)  They then had an opportunity to see demonstrations of the web applications built during the first months of the project and talk to the project team members and student researchers who developed them.  A lively discussion of how the semantic technologies on display might be used in different teaching and learning environments.

David Good, member of the project advisory group, summed up the discussions, highlighting how technological issues raised were underpinned by fundamental questions about teaching and learning.  Of particular interest and importance, he suggested, was the development of deep understanding of the role of cases in learning which would be necessary to respond to new curricular challenges and make the best use of new technologies.