Ontological Modelling for Designing Educational Systems

Constructing ontologies in educational design is not really new. The specification of educational goals is what is called now a days an ontology. Although content has always been considered a crucial factor in education, the emphasis in educational research has been on form, as is also pointed out by [Mizoguchi et al., 1997]. Ontological engineering for constructing educational systems may look like putting the same old wine in new barrels, but we should be aware that that these new barrels may give a new flavour to this wine. As an example we discuss a core ontology about law, used in the development of educational systems. 1 A core ontology mediates a top ontology, that reflects our common sense understanding of the world, and an ontology that defines the concepts and structures in a domain. A core ontology tells us what a domain is about. The core ontology discussed is FOLaw [Valente, 1995], a functional ontology of law, as applied in PROSA, a system that trains students to solve problems (cases) in adminstrative law. A major conclusion is that emphasis has shifted from skill acquisition to obtaining insight and understanding. Anaother benefit of this ‘ontological view’ is that types of knowledge distinguished in core ontologies can make up categories that provide the similar decompositions as task analyses, but apparently in a more ‘natural’ way.