Educational Modelling Languages

EML (Educational Modelling Language)

"To date no comprehensive notational system exists that allows one to codify units of study (e.g. courses, course components and study programmes), in an integral fashion. EML is the first system to achieve precisely this. EML describes not just the content of a unit of study (texts, tasks, tests, assignments) but also the roles, relations, interactions and activities of students and teachers. EML is neutral with respect to the pedagogy and mode of delivery used. One may use EML to model for instance a competence based pedagogy, problem based learning, performance support, self study packages or even traditional face-to-face teaching; EML allows one to deliver learning materials on paper, on CD-ROM, via the Internet, or via e-books. EML merely records the way in which the various elements of a particular educational setting are related in order that they may be interpreted by a computer. The major EML implementation is in XML (eXtensible Mark-up Language), an internationally accepted meta-language for the structured description of documents and data." Open University of Netherlands

Added: 5 July 2001
Reviewer's Note:
This is an exciting approach to modelling pedagogical environments

Mentoring Activity and Query-Response Ontology (MAQRO)

"The Mentoring Activity and Question-Response Ontology (MAQRO) is an RDF ontology for describing query and response scenarios. MAQRO has features especially useful in educational settings. Use cases include storing test and assessment questions; describing a series of educational interactions; planning a series of education activities; and formulating polls."

Added: 10 August 2004
Reviewer's Note:
MAQRO is copyright © 2003-2004 GlobalMentor, Inc., and may be freely copied and used for non-commercial purposes, but only in unmodified form.

PALO

"is a proposal of Educative Modelling Language  to describe and design learning content and learning environments  at a high level of abstraction. PALO is based on a  reference framework  to design educative content based in 5 levels of abstraction. Each level identifies a certain group of related components or elements of a learning resource.  The language  allows to define teaching strategies  by mean of   the definition of specific DTD's called instructional templates .  This templates are a general type of PALO document that specially suits for a given instructional or teaching purpose. PALO has been designed to be a  technology-independent representation of a learning reseource, thus allowing educative content interchange , interoperability, mantainability and reusability. A PALO description of a learning content (a *.palo file) can be turned into a variety of  learning scenarios (each one built using an specific  delivery format) via a compiling process."

Added: 3 February 2002
Reviewer's Note:
Produced by UNED Madrid

Tutorial Modelling Language

"Tutorial Markup Language (TML) an interchange format designed to separate the semantic content of a question from its screen layout or formatting. The language is designed to support several different types of question within the same content model. TML 4.0 is essentially a super-set of HTML, with new elements added to describe question information. TML version 4.0 has been specified using SGML, an ISO standard language for formally describing document types. Future versions of TML are likely to be represented using Extensible Markup Language (XML), a simplified subset of SGML, and be structured using the data modelling facilities of the Resource Description Framework (RDF). Work is currently in progress on TML version 5.0, re-named Tutorial Modelling Language to mark the shift to an RDF-based approach." Institute for Learning and Research Technology, Bristol University

Added: 5 July 2001
Reviewer's Note:
A modelling language that is being used to explore the creation of searchable question banks for online delivery of tutorials and assessment.