WOntoVLab: A Virtual Laboratory Authorship Process Based on Workflow and Ontologies

Virtual laboratories can be used by educational institutions to facilitate and enrich the learning of specific procedures. To provide an environment similar to the real one, it is recommended to create experiments that require the accomplishment of a protocol (guide) aiming to support the assessment of the students. Furthermore, it is important to stimulate the identification of different possibilities to the execution of a same task, considering similar materials and procedures. In this context, this paper describes WOntoVLab, a virtual laboratory authorship process that relies on workflow representation technology and ontologies in order to represent experiments based on semantic vocabulary and alternative steps. The framework developed, WOntoVLab Process Framework (WPF), is also detailed so that educational institutions can be able to define virtual laboratories according to the WOntoVLab process.