Reusing Experiences for an Effective Learning

in a Web-Based Context

Elder Bomfim1, Jonice Oliveira1, and Jano M. de Souza1,2

1 COPPE/UFRJ – Computer Science Department, Graduate School of Engineering/Federal,
University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2 DCC-IM/UFRJ – Computer Science Department, Mathematics Institute, Federal,

University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

{elderlpb, jonice, jano}@cos.ufrj.br

Abstract. Human learning does not take place on a single level, but is a stratified
process. This means that there is a sequence that is to be observed in teaching and
learning. One of the possibilities for improving teaching and learning processes,
and consequently, the knowledge flow, is to explore successful past experiences,
resulting from the modeling and execution of previous processes. This work
presents Thoth, a web-environment which aims at knowledge reuse, during the
planning, design and execution of teaching and learning activities. This approach
is integrated with a Case Based Reasoning approach, also described in this paper,
with workflow systems and the use of ontologies.

1 Introduction
In the educational context, we face with continuous modeling and execution of
processes. We can exemplify the educational context with learning, teaching and
scientific scenario.
Human learning does not take place on a single level, but it is a stratified process.
This characteristic is worldwide accepted as a didactic principle. The way in which
the educational system throughout the whole world is organized is an acknowledge-
ment of this. One cannot send a child to university first. He must start in the first class
and then progress year after year to the higher levels of education.
Research and scientific organizations have the aim of creating and to disseminating
knowledge. For the construction of scientific knowledge, research work is carried out
which can be described as a discovery process, an investigation of a fact or
confirmation of hypotheses. Scientists plan their research by designing sequential
steps that utilize models, data, tools and other artifacts. It can be concluded that the
use of the past experiences offers a learning opportunity and expedites activity
planning and execution. Knowledge about previous research can increase work
efficiency and quality so as to allow for successful practices being reused, the notion
about how the data had been acquired and previously handled.
A workflow management system, in this environment, aids activity planning and
allows for control and coordination of these activities. Besides, the information
generated during the planning and execution of the work can be considered as

X. Zhou et al. (Eds.): APWeb 2006, LNCS 3841, pp. 961 – 966, 2006.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006
962 E. Bomfim, J. Oliveira, and J.M. de Souza

documentation of the activities. However, the workflow system does not have as its
objective supporting the collaboration among the professionals, faster knowledge
identification and creation, nor facilitating reuse of the best practices. That is the
Thoth objective.
The paper is organized as follows. The second section describes how we can reuse
educational processes and its advantages. The third section explains the workflow
management system and the way it is used in the educational environment. Section
four presents the Thoth and how the CBR was implemented, while section 5 presents
conclusions and future work.

2 Reusing Educational Process

Reusing processes is a manner of reducing errors, improving already known processes
and execute processes in a faster way.
We find several approaches related to reuse educational content, as the learning
objects, which are defined as any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used,
reused or referenced during technology supported learning. In spite of the success of
proposals in reuse educational content, little attention was given to reusing
educational processes. In this section we will talk about two kind of educational
processes: the scientific and the teaching process.
To accomplish their scientific work, a researcher collects and analyses a great
amount of data and information from many sources, such as text and spreadsheet
documents, database tables, besides executing simulations, and constructing or
adapting models. An important phase to completing these activities satisfactorily is
planning. During planning, researchers define the strategies to obtain the answers and
solutions to the problems which motivated the research.
Planning, in a scientific context, means establishing which and how simulations
need to be done; locating, constructing or adapting models and data, defining
documents that should be consulted and finally defining adequate sequence for
activities which need to be executed. This task is normally complex because of many
factors. Sometimes research demands knowledge from different domain areas or a
high degree of specialization. The multidisciplinary character makes it necessary to
consult information sources from other domains or collaborate with specialists from
these domains.
Besides, it is common to find a great amount of data and information without use;
in these cases, location of more adequate items becomes harder, extra effort being
necessary to filter it. On the other hand, little-explored domains have little
information, which renders work execution harder, it being necessary to adapt models
for the amount and quality of existing data and information.
Also, it is important to observe that activities are normally experimental; thus it is
possible perform modifications in those activities even when they are already in
execution. When unexpected results come from simulations, for example, new
activities can be necessary or subsequent activities can be discarded.
In scientific procedures, the reuse of processes, and sometimes only the
observation of information about these processes, prevents mistakes to be repeated
and allows doubts to be eliminated, providing economy of time and resources.
 Reusing Experiences for an Effective Learning in a Web-Based Context 963

Related to the teaching context, new teachers receive little guidance about what to
teach or how to teach it. Learning to teach well is slow, is a difficult work. Managing
a classroom, choosing or creating curriculum, developing sound instructional
strategies, accurately assessing student understanding, and adjusting to student needs
are complex tasks, and new teachers need time and support to develop the necessary
knowledge and skills. However, a way of help novices is the possibility of they watch
the experts and develop their craft under guidance. That is, analyze and reuse
successful teaching process of experienced colleagues.

3 Workflow Management System on Educational Context

Educational workflow has the function of aiding the control, execution and
documentation of scientific work. The differentiation of these systems in relation to
the traditional workflows lies in the way that educational activity is accomplished,
which demands functionalities not supported by a traditional system. As described in
[1], the following aspects should be supported so as to support the scientific activity,
but can be interpreted to support educational activity too:
− Incompleteness: educational workflows can be executed even when their
definition is incomplete, being built progressively during their execution, they
do not need to be entirely defined before they are executed.
− Partial Reuse: educational workflows differ from traditional ones because they
are considered as construction blocks, and processes can be grouped to create
another process.
− Dynamic modification: educational workflows can be redefined during their
execution. For example, when an activity fails, it may be necessary to execute
other activities to compensate for the problematic activity or to fall back to a
previous activity.
Our approach, called Thoth, was conceived on the premise that this information is,
in fact, an important resource of organizational learning and an important aid for the
design and the execution of the educational processes. However, this resource is sub-
used due to lack of appropriate interfaces and strategies for search, filtering and
visualization [2].

4 Thoth

The Thoth has as its purpose allowing for the reuse of the existing knowledge in the
educational activities stored in the Workflow Management System. A researcher
can use the system to consult and reuse the definition of the model of the past
processes performed when he/she plans his/her own activities, to consult
information of similar activities during the execution of his own activities, to
interact with other users that have participated in the design or execution phases in
similar processes and activities.
964 E. Bomfim, J. Oliveira, and J.M. de Souza

The Thoth environment is detailed in Figure 1.

Fig. 1. Thoth Environment Fig. 2. Ontology based model

During process design, the user uses the system defining a set of parameters, for
search processes, and then he/she obtains, as result of search, a set of processes
related with the selected parameters. From the moment processes are located, the user
can navigate to each one, choosing activities, documents and other artifacts to use in
his/her own processes. Then, after the user chooses the activities that will be reused, it
is possible to identify some search parameters automatically. Thus, it is possible to
refine the search with specific properties coming from activities and processes,
refining the search process further. Factors as the position of the activities in the
process (previous activities and successors activities), needed competences to execute
these activities, documents manipulated in them and tools used can be employed in
the definition of the appropriate processes that should be returned.
The Thoth provides an instant messaging tool allowing for this communication.
Communication allows that issues about some process or doubts raised after the
process browse can by debated with an activity performer.

4.1 CBR Approach in Thoth

The Thoth uses the CBR approach (Case Base Reasoning) [3] to search for
information from activities and processes, which could be useful for the
accomplishment of educational work. In Thoth, the approach is performed by raising
the analogy between process instances and the cases. The reasoning process executed
in Thoth is accomplished with the aid of ontology which allows for the identification
of the concepts related with processes and activities. Ontology allows, in similarity
reasoning, for semantic aspects to be identified and considered during the calculations
in a computationally-feasible manner.

4.2 Classification Process

The approach for classification and search used in Thoth is similar to one the usually
found in information retrieval systems [4] [5]. Classification is done when process
information is stored in the Workflow System and it has, as a result, a set of ontology
concepts that can be associated to the process being classified. For the identification
 Reusing Experiences for an Effective Learning in a Web-Based Context 965

of these concepts, the analysis of the resources(documents used, manipulated data,

etc) attached to each activity from the processes to be executed. This allows for first
the activities and then the process being associated with the ontological concepts.
This analysis is possible because the user can identify what ontological terms are
related to each resource type. This process is aided by automatic classification
strategies. When the resource is a text, the latter could be mined looking for the
identification of ontological terms related to it. For other types of attributes, such as
images, maps, tables, etc., metadata analysis allows for the same kind of association.
The identified concepts work as process and activity descriptors. The storage of
these descriptors is accomplished in a similarly to the proposal for [6]; in this
approach, the descriptors are stored with an id for the classified objects (in the case of
Thoh, activities and processes) in a group of database tuples, as can be seen in the
figure 2.

4.3 Search Process

The search process starts with the selection of the descriptors as user request or by the
automatic capture of these characteristics in a modeled process. During the search, the
descriptors are analyzed in order to define the similarity degree with the processes
previously executed and stored in the workflow system database.

4.3.1 Similarity Definition

Several approaches were analyzed for the similarity definition among ontological
concepts for the definition of similar concepts. Two works are selected as a guide for
the definition of our strategy: one developed by Rodriguez [7] and the other
developed by Bergmann [8]. In both, calculation is performed through the
computation of intra-class similarity and of inter-class similarity. Intra-class similarity
is calculated through the common properties of the classes compared. These
properties can be identified in the immediate super-class that subsumes the classes
being compared. Inter-class similarity has the objective of exploring the existent
semantics in class hierarchy.

4.3.2 Performing the Search

As result of search requisitions, a SQL query is generated. The query is done on the
table that links the ontology with the processes, described previously.
First, the SQL query contemplates only the original concepts selected by the user
or identified automatically in the processes. If the amount of returned processes is not
enough, a second search is accomplished. In this case, the query is expanded with the
concepts identified as similar through the method explained in section 4.3.1.

5 Conclusion and Future Work

The Thoth brings a new approach to knowledge reuse in the educational environment,
by aggregating a workflow management system, CBR and ontology. Some proposals
are found in literature to support non-business work with a workflow system, as for
example the BOE systems [9], the WASA systems [10], the conceptual scientific
966 E. Bomfim, J. Oliveira, and J.M. de Souza

CPSE prototype [11], among others. None of these uses the CBR approach to enable
process reuse; the CPSE for instance, allows for visualization of all of the occurrences
of a process. The BOE allows for the reuse, but a keyword search is done to locate the
process. Moreover, a collaborative module was developed with the purpose of
enhancing knowledge exchange among the researchers.
We are focused on the development of classification, similarity reasoning and
search strategies. The next step comprises the enhancement of the collaborative
module with new functionality to allow for more participation in the design process of
the researchers consulted (Collaborative edition of activities and process). Other
future work comprises a modification to allow for use with other workflow systems,
through the development of a prototype following the WfmC standard [12].

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