Facilitate knowledge communications

With current multimedia information management techniques, the knowledge communications among users in multimedia e-Learning environments are still limited at a relative low single type media servicing level. New developments in multimedia knowledge discovery, representation and integration are needed to improve the intelligence of the knowledge management and communications at the semantic level. This paper proposes a novel contextual knowledge management framework to improve the current isolated learning information retrieval and communication status, by enabling flexible knowledge representation beyond heterogeneous multimedia learning resources and facilitating multilevel knowledge communications between instructors and learners. Based on knowledge communication model analysis in university e-Learning environments, a contextual knowledge representation model is presented. Corresponding knowledge retrieval techniques are discussed afterwards. To demonstrate the proposed concepts and techniques, a case study in a virtual scenario-based learning environment shows how the presented framework works with existing e-Learning content description standards and multimedia information retrieval techniques, and consequently enables a semantic-based interactive learning environment.