Ontology-based information integration in virtual learning environment

A good virtual learning environment should deliver relevant learning materials to learners at the most appropriate time and locations to facilitate learners' acquisition of knowledge and skills. In this paper, we propose ontology-based information integration in virtual learning environment using ontology and Web services. Relevant concepts extracted from domain ontology provide ontology-based browsing space that allows users to browse and select relevant terms of interest and increases the degree of relevancy. By using Web services to integrate learning materials from heterogeneous public domain data sources, applications do not need to know the internal structure and working of public domain data sources, and reuse existing applications and recourses. We use gene ontology, PubMed eUtils and Google Web APIs to demonstrate our idea. The implementation involves techniques in image and video processing, database management, programming, and multimedia learning materials presentation.