ContentNet: a framework for the interoperability of educational content using standard IMS

The World Wide Web arises as a means to facilitate communication and provid e an easier user interface to obtain distributed data. The WWW was organize d to allow information contained within it to be read by machines, without them needing to be concerned about interpreting the content. With the incre ase in the volume of information on the Web, finding, accessing and obtaini ng information from it became extremely difficult. Seeking a solution to th is problem, the IMS project, a consortium of academic, commercial and gover nmental organizations, has been developing and proposing specifications to facilitate the growth and viability of online activities in the area of edu cation. One of the most important activities of the project is the learning process on the Internet, with the possibility of interoperability between different environments to give support to Web-based education. Based on thi s project and on the need to re-use the contents already present in the Web -based education servers, this work presents an object-oriented framework t hat facilitates the description, localization and use of educational conten t available in servers compatible with the IMS project. (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.