Autonomic Computing and Ontologies to Enable Context-aware Learning Design

Semantic web technologies and autonomic computing principles are combined in this paper in an attempt to design and build a learning design environment that possesses context-aware features. Our approach builds on the features of self-management and organisation of autonomic computing but uses self-configuration as a means to extend a knowledge-based inference through the design of meta-level inference. Thus, the context inference is modelled using a meta-interpreter and self-configuration rules. The details of our approach are presented demonstrating the use of self-configurable inferencing to support the creation and use of context-paths across learning design domain concepts. The paths exploit ontology alignment principles to determine contextual relevance between user learning designs and core system knowledge.