Curriculum Modeling through Ontologies Carolina Sarmiento González Master candidate in Systems Engineering and Computer Science

Universidad Nacional de Colombia Research Seminar April, 2009

Outline








Background Problem Solution Methodology Proposal Expected Results References

Background

Problem


There is a new pedagogical perspective in which the industry has identified the importance of evaluating the engineers education, arguing that they have an adequate level of technical knowledge but they lack of some fundamental skills for the exercise of their profession. This new vision of the engineers role, led to many universities in several countries to rethink their curricula.




In Colombia, the Engineering Faculty of Universidad Nacional, launched in early 2007 to design the curriculum to meet their needs, as well as initiated a process of updating of all curricula, oriented towards the modernization of them.




Given this process of curricular reform, the need to obtain a guide to represent a curriculum was detected, because currently there is not a full characterization of these programs as an open and dynamic system.

Problem

Solution


Modeling a curriculum through ontologies.

Methodology: METHONTOLOGY



It was developed within the Ontology Group at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. METHONTOLOGY proposes an ontology building life cycle based on evolving prototypes

Development Process of METHONTOLOGY

Proposal (1)


To facilitate the understanding and application of METHONTOLOGY has been designed a process diagram, which presents the sequence of activities within the process of building an ontology.

Proposal (2)


Currently the development of the iterations is been worked as part of the life cycle of METHONTOLOGY

Expected Results


This work will support the educational processes, related to the creation or modification of curriculums, because through this representation will be defined the terms used to describe and represent the knowledge area of Electrical Engineering Program. Ontologies created will share information specific to the area and make that knowledge reusable.

References [1] Gruber, T. R., “A translation approach to portable ontology specifications, Knowledge Acquisition,” ISSN 1042-8143, vol. 5, Nº 2, pp. 199-220, 1993. [2] Kennedy, Theodore C., “The “value-added” approach to engineering education: An industry perspective,” The Bridge- National Academy of Engineering, vol. 36, Nº 2, pp. 14–16, 2006. [3] Wulf, W.A., “The Urgency of Engineering Education Reform,” The Bridge National Academy of Engineering, vol. 28, Nº 1, pp. 48, 1998. [4] Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica, “Competencias: La opinión de los profesores,” Sobre el “syllabus” CDIO, Junio 2008. [5] Gómez-Pérez A. and Fernández-López M and Corcho O, “Ontological Engineering: with examples from the areas of nowledge management, ecommerce and the Semantic Web,” Springer-Verlag, New York, 2003.