Presentation by Vincenza Carchiolo at the 1st World Summit of the Open Knowledge Society, Athens, 24-26 September 2008. Track: Knowledge, Learning, Education, Learning Technologies, and eLearning for the Knowledge Society.
One of the major advantages of E-learning is the personalization of learning paths. But currently lifelong learning scenario often consists of a P2P network of prosumers (provider+consumers), so no central authority manages the learning objects. Thus the choice of the best learning materials as well as the best order (learning paths) is problematic.
The authors distinguish two types of trust: Trust among peers, which allows to express which one is more reliable (authoritative) in answering a query within a given topic (described by shared ontology). Trust peer-learn objects express which LOs are considered more useful by that peer.
Approach: The proposed model is based on a peer-to-peer network with prosumers and LOs (modelled as a directed multigraph). A peers stores his suggested learning paths LOS precedences-successions and relations) and assigns trust to peers and resources. LO is a resource described through its set of prerequisites and objectives. Peer-to-peer trust expresses the reliability a peer assigns to another peer about a given topic, the label is trustworthiness in the [-1;1] range. Peer-to-resource trust expresses the reliability a peer assigns to a resource. Learners can assign a query to search for reliable and personalized learning paths by providing: prerequisites and objectives; total time available; level of difficulty; and a threshold for trustworthiness. The results is a sequence of resources.
Related work: Ariadne, ALFAnet, Edutella.
This works is currently focusing on global learning scenarios without authority, not university scenarios. But it could be applied to an university-scenarios. Just that we would have to change the traditional way, in which students are consumers only. They should of course trust the lecturer, but should be encourage to contribute to the course, to enrich the course content with pointers to the web, new problems, and examples. Then trusting peers could help students to improve their lecture materials.