An Ontology-Based Curriculum Knowledgebase for Managing Complexity and Change

A curriculum knowledgebase, based on a visual model and ontology, is presented part way through its development lifecycle. The early modelling stages have yielded a means to tackle the complex curriculum structure, an operational knowledgebase and consensus among the domain experts on the ways in which the academic curriculum development team, students and administrators will interact with the curriculum and become involved with its ongoing maintenance and enhancement. Development continues of route-based and collaborative editing interfaces to the knowledgebase. The knowledgebase system is generally applicable to all structured curricula and is being evaluated in three schools of medicine that use Problem Based Learning.