Ontology and Learning Path Driven Social E-learning Platform

Accompanying the rapid evolution of social networks, e-learning is evolving toward a new trend: Social Learning. In this way, users from diverse fields create and share their professional knowledge, thus enormous socially constructed free form knowledge exists in social realm. However, such social knowledge is widely segregated and diversified over the Web in an unstructured and uncontrolled way. It is difficult to be discovered, aggregated, and managed in social spaces for supporting the goals of the learner. In this paper, we propose an ontology-based social learning platform SEP driven by learning path for improving the learning efficacy in Social Networks. The ontology technology is adopted as the modeling tools to formalize and structuralize social knowledge while learning path is generated using IMS (Instructional Management Systems) Learning Design specification to aid learners toward successful learning in the era of e-learning 2.0. The true benefits of e-learning 2.0 can be therefore better realized.