Automatic Generation of Metadata for Learning Objects

Abstract

With the advent of a large number of educational resources in electronic forms, as well as the pervasiveness of online learning management systems, which uses these resources, a number of problems related to search and reuse of existing materials arise. For many years metadata is a good mechanism for describing the electronic resources. Metadata is data about data, information about information, and description of content which allows having the opportunity to find the necessary information, access it in an acceptable form. The aim of this thesis is the analysis of automatic generation input for increasing the level of discovery and reusability of learning object. We have examined what contribution to the production of metadata for learning objects the curriculum information stored in the form of course syllabus and analysis of the harvestable metadata will provide. The syllabus field’s analysis helped us to identify patterns in the structure of syllabus and determine the rules which the information will be extracted from.We studied and discussed what elements of metadata can be harvested and utilized for a detailed description of the learning object in addition to the information extracted from the course syllabus. As a result, we have learned to what extent the automatic generation of metadata for learning object using proposed resources can be utilized as a supplement to the manual input.