Collaborative Design on Ontologies : Theory, Opportunities and Convenient Applications

Increased demands on users have led to information and media competence gaining a very high priority in today's information society. Thus, they are giving rise to challenges in the process of teaching these competencies in universities. In this paper, a concept for a blended learning approach will be proposed. The framework of this approach allows key qualifications to be taught through the implementation of contextual teaching. This involves focusing on the process of the collaborative design and development of knowledge structures. In this process students must envision implicit associations within a subject area and discuss various points of view, concepts, and understandings in cooperation with their fellow students and visualize them in the form of topic maps. The approach is based upon new insights from the areas of cognitive learning psychology, education and didactics. The process of collaborative ontology development occurs in a learning environment that was developed and implemented over a number of years and which is explicitly geared towards the teaching of key qualifications