Ontological approach for competency-based curriculum analysis

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the development of a model for competencies within an educational program and its implementation through the use of semantic technologies. The model proposed by the authors is distinctive in that competencies are organized into a hierarchical data structure with arbitrary levels of nesting. Furthermore, the article presents an original solution for modelling the input requirements for studying a course, which is defined in the form of dependencies between the competencies generated by the course and the competencies of other courses. The outcome of this work is an ontological model of a competency-based curriculum, for which the authors have developed and implemented algorithms for data addition and retrieval, as well as for analyzing the consistency of the curriculum in terms of the input requirements for studying a discipline and the learning outcomes from previous periods. The findings presented in the article will prove to be valuable in the development of educational process management information systems and educational program constructors. They will also be instrumental in aligning diverse educational programs within the context of academic mobility.

Keywords

• Ontology
• Educational program
• Prerequisites
• SPARQL
• Owlready2
• Curriculum