ENSEMBLE

A Web Programmer/Developer with a strong background in computer science or an allied area is sought to work on ‘Ensemble’, a 3 year ESRC/EPSRC research and development project funded under the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (http://www.ensemble.ac.uk). The post will be based primarily in the Faculty of Education, Community and Leisure at Liverpool John Moores University, working under the direction of Prof. Patrick Carmichael.

This new role involves making use of this and other data sources, web services and web application frameworks to build interactive web applications to support teaching and learning. Partial posts would be possible by negotiation.

The ideal candidate will have expertise in a combination of the following areas: Javascript, JSON and Ajax; Server side scripting languages such as Python, Perl, PHP or similar;Using and developing Google Apps APIs, web services and similar Digital repositories (such as Fedora and DSpace) and the development and implementation of metadata schemes, ontologies and thesauri; Emerging Semantic Web standards (XML-RDF and N3; OWL; SKOS; SPARQL). We are looking for someone with a background in Computer Science or an allied area and educated to at least Masters level – although candidates with comparable relevant experience are also encouraged to apply. Specific background is less important than an interest in the educational applications of technology, a broad knowledge of semantic web technologies capable of supporting teaching and learning, and a willingness to develop skills and approaches over the lifetime of the project. Experience of working in an Open-Source/Community software development environment would also be useful.

This is an opportunity for the right candidate not just to implement new web technologies in education, but also to play an active role in shaping what the ‘Educational Semantic Web’ might be and to set directions for future development as part of an important international project.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Patrick Carmichael, email: w.p.carmichael (at ) ljmu.ac.uk

Application is by application form. The application form, equal opportunities form and job description/person specification details can be downloaded from the Liverpool John Moores University website

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

Iestyn Pryce is a 2nd year Engineering student at Cambridge. He intends to specialise in Information and Computer Engineering. Iestyn has been a UROP student at Caret with the Ensemble Project over the summer vacation this year, and he has developed a new RDF-izer called ‘Gwybodaeth’ (the Welsh word for ‘knowledge’).

“Gwybodaeth is a set of Perl classes for conversion of data into RDF. It is utility to convert data which isn’t semantic into nice, RDF-ized semantic data” says Iestyn. “It is designed to be modular and extensible because there are n-types of non-semantic data out there, so it was designed so that other people could easily add small bits to the program, so that they can convert from whatever format they have in to RDF”.

What sets Gwybodaeth apart from other existing RDF-izers is the ability to preserve namespaces, allowing data mapping, whilst being a simple to use, user-friendly web service. Iestyn says, “Maps are incredibly useful. Not only do they mean that you don’t have to change your data beforehand, it also means that you can have things like logic.”

Users within the University of Cambridge can use Gwybodaeth as a web service at http://gwybodaeth.caret.cam.ac.uk/. Gwybodaeth has also been released as an open-source application this week at the CPAN - click here to visit its webpage.

For further information:

• Read the Gwybodaeth documentation
• Get Gwybodaeth at the CPAN
• Github