BILDU: Compile, Unify, Wrap, and Share Digital Learning Resources

Abstract

The Internet has become an unstructured database where it is difficult to obtain relevant and quality results. This fact hinders the collection of digital resources that can be used for educational purposes. Besides, learning resource harvesting tools neither refine search results based on user profile information, nor do they facilitate collaboration between users with similar interests. Overcoming these limitations is very important in order to find, retrieve, and share learning resources. This paper gives an overview of current search technologies and proposes to develop a social search framework that would adapt generic search paradigms to the specific characteristics of learning resources. The idea of the framework is based on the following concepts: compile (indexation of learning resource repositories and creation of vertical search engines), unify (integration of vertical search engines), wrap (designing the appropriate interfaces that fetch search criteria and present results