OpenScout

Fourth International Workshop on
Search and Exchange of e-le@rning Materials (SE@M'10)
http://www.learningstandards.eu/seam2010/

CALL FOR PAPERS - Submission Deadline: 15 JUNE 2010

CONTEXT AND MOTIVATION

Over the last fifteen years, considerable effort has been spent on the development of standards and specifications in order to improve the interoperability of e-learning systems, repositories, and content. These efforts have led to significant improvements in the arena of technical interoperability enabling the emergence and expansion of successful federations and alliances of learning object repositories such as the LRE, ARIADNE, GLOBE, etc. Building blocks for this success have been the creation, evolution and adoption of standards such as the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM), the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), and the Simple Query Interface (SQI). More recent developments in this field include the definition of a Simple Publishing Interface (SPI) and the ongoing work within the IMS Global Learning Consortium on the Learning Object Discovery & Exchange (LODE) specification to facilitate the discovery and retrieval of learning objects stored across more than one collection. The development of best practices (for example by projects like ASPECT and ICOPER), enabling more efficient use of these standards and specifications, has also proven instrumental in the successes of current learning content retrieval infrastructures.

Given the significant improvements in the technical infrastructures allowing for the exchange of learning objects and metadata, attention of domain experts is now increasingly turning to the development and implementation of solutions to enhance semantic interoperability.  There is also a need to better optimize techniques for the management of controlled vocabularies and to guarantee interoperability between different application profiles.   A series of other issues are yet to be resolved including best-practices and tools for access control to learning resources and issues of privacy and data protection in the context of e-learning.

To further developments in this field, the main goal of this international workshop is to offer a forum where researchers and practitioners can discuss theoretical aspects, open issues, and innovative approaches and share the latest advances in the state of the art and practices for exchanging and describing learning content. This year's workshop will include presentations of both long and short refereed papers as well as panel discussions, keynotes and demonstrations.

TOPICS OF INTEREST (include, but are not limited to)

* Infrastructures for learning resource discovery and exchange

- Interoperable content and metadata repositories
- Protocols for exposing content
- Federations of learning resources
- Service registries

* Metadata Management
- Standards, application profiles and application profile registries
- Metadata conformance, testing and validation services
- Automatic metadata generation versus human indexing
- Controlled vocabularies, translations, crosswalks and controlled vocabulary management and tools
- Protocols and techniques for metadata exchange
- Infrastructure for mass metadata processing
- Techniques for achieving metadata interoperability
- Inclusion of other types of content (library, cultural heritage)

* Discovering content
- User profiling for more accurate resource discovery
- Retrieval of learning resources (searching, browsing)
- Interoperable query languages
- Enhanced search mechanism (sorting, ranking)
- Recommendation systems

* Access Control vs. Open
- Data protection
- Privacy in eLearning contexts
- Copyright vs. Creative Commons
- Guaranteeing 'openness' of open content
- Intellectual property and metadata

* Exchanging content
- Standards for reusable content (SCORM, Common Cartridge, QTI, etc.)
- Resource identification
- Reliable auditing (tracking, reporting)
- Use tracking

SUBMISSIONS

Authors are invited to submit original unpublished research as full papers (max. 10 pages) or work-in-progress as short papers (max. 5 pages). All submitted papers will be peer-reviewed by three members of the program committee for originality, significance, clarity and quality. Accepted papers will be published online as part of the CEUR Workshop proceedings series. CEUR-WS.org is a recognized ISSN publication series, ISSN 1613-0073.

Authors should use the Springer LNCS format (http://www.springer.com/lncs). For camera-ready format instructions, please see "For Authors" instructions at: http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html.

Submissions, and questions, should be sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Those interested in demonstrating their work during the workshop are also invited to contact the organizers at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

IMPORTANT DATES

* 15 June 2010: Paper Submission deadline
* 30 July 2010: Notification of acceptance
* 10 August 2010: Camera Ready Submission
* 27-28 September 2010: Workshop

LOCATION

The workshop will take place at Hotel Catalonia Plaza, Barcelona, the same venue as EC-TEL 2010 (www.ectel2010.org).

REGISTRATION

Registration fee is 60 euros to cover for the costs of coffee breaks and lunch.
Online registration at: http://www.learningstandards.eu/seam2010/registration

ORGANISERS

David Massart, European Schoolnet, Belgium Elena Shulman, European Schoolnet, Belgium Serge Ravet, EIfEL, France

PROGRAM COMMITTEE

* Luis Anido, University of Vigo, Spain
* Vladimir Batagelj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
* Jean-Noel Colin, University of Namur, Belgium    
* Ingo Dahn, University of Koblenz, Germany
* Erik Duval, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
* Joris Klerkx, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
* Manuel Kolp, Universite catholique de Louvain, Belgium
* Robert Kristoefl, BMUKK, Austria
* Eugenijus Kurilovas, ITC, Centre of Information Technologies of Education, Lithuania
* Tien-Dung Le, European Schoolnet, Belgium
* Nikos Manouselis, Greek Research & Technology Network, Greece
* Jon Mason, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
* Tomasz Orzechowski, AGH University of Science and Technology, Poland
* Fredrik Paulsson, Umea University, Sweden
* Jan Pawlowski, JYU, Finland
* Alain Pirotte, Universite catholique de Louvain, Belgium
* Daniel Rehak, ADL, USA
* Griff Richards, Athabasca University, Canada
* Bernd Simon, WU-Wien, Austria   
* Stefaan Ternier, Open Universiteit, The Netherlands
* Frans Van Assche, Ariadne Foundation, Belgium
* Riina Vuorikari, European Schoolnet, Belgium
* Tsuneo Yamada, Open University, Japan