Generating metadata for cyberlearning resources through information retrieval and meta-search

Abstract

The goal of this study was to propose novel cyberlearning resource-based scientific referential metadata for an assortment of publications and scientific topics, in order to enhance the learning experiences of students and scholars in a cyberinfrastructure-enabled learning environment. By using information retrieval and meta-search approaches, different types of referential metadata, such as related Wikipedia pages, data sets, source code, video lectures, presentation slides, and (online) tutorials for scientific publications and scientific topics will be automatically retrieved, associated, and ranked. In order to test our method of automatic cyberlearning referential metadata generation, we designed a user experiment to validate the quality of the metadata for each scientific keyword and publication and resource-ranking algorithm. Evaluation results show that the cyberlearning referential metadata retrieved via meta-search and statistical relevance ranking can help students better understand the essence of scientific keywords and publications. © 2013 ASIS&T.