Searching the internet for learning materials through didactic indicator

Abstract

Internet offers a huge amount of didactic materials that can be used in creating new online courses. However, those materials need a deep analysis to understand their context and contents before their potential use. As a consequence, the search of didactic material in internet is often quite tedious and time consuming so the searcher usually limits his/her analysis to the first found web pages . To help users in finding efficiently and timely the most appropriate online materials, we have developed a system, called SAXEF (System for Automatic eXtraction of lEearning object Features), that is capable to automatically extract the didactic indicators (a sort of DNA) of any web page (or group of pages) found on internet. Moreover, we have developed an e-learning search engine, SaxSearch, around SAXEF. It allows the user to make requests in terms of didactic indicators and automatically browses the internet to find the web pages that best match the user requirements.