The OU linked open data: Production and consumption

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce the current efforts toward the release and exploitation of The Open University's (OU) Linked Open Data (LOD). We introduce the work that has been done within the LUCERO project in order to select, extract and structure subsets of information contained within the OU data sources and migrate and expose this information as part of the LOD cloud. To show the potential of such exposure we also introduce three different prototypes that exploit this new educational resource: (1) the OU expert search system, a tool focused on finding the best experts for a certain topic within the OU staff; (2) the Social Study system, a tool that relies on Facebook information to identify common interest between a user's profile and recommend potential courses within the OU; and (3) Linked OpenLearn, an application that enables exploring linked courses, Podcasts and tags to OpenLearn units. Its aim is to enhance the browsing experience for students, by detecting relevant educational resources on the fly while studying an OpenLearn unit. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.