Description of the course
This course aims to familiarize students with basic concepts of knowledge engineering. It teaches the basics of knowledge acquisition methods, IR, NLP and machine learning techniques. In addition, it focuses on knowledge representation, logic and reasoning. Finally, the course introduces students to the semantic web and ontology engineering. During the course, students implement a group project, in which they work on knowledge engineering concepts to build a knowledge-based system prototype, to document it and to deploy it within a semester. The ICT-INOV design thinking software platform has been introduced in this course since the 2022 – 2023 academic year.
Description of the participants
The course is mandatory in the 1st semester of Master’s in Computer Systems and Knowledge Engineering graduate level program offered by the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Institute of Energy, Tribhuvan University. A total of 20 graduate students were engaged in the course in the fall 2022 – 2023 academic year. ICT-INOV will be further deployed in the following academic years.
Description of gamified design thinking activities
Students worked in 5 groups that consisted of 4 individuals each. Each team worked on an individual project. An activity was developed in the ICT-INOV platform for each for the 5 knowledge engineering projects for the course project. Activities were divided into the following steps.
Step 1. Team formation and project background study.
Students were asked to form a group of up to 4 individuals and choose a name and logo for the team. Subsequently, groups were asked to select a project topic from a list of projects provided by the instructor or to introduce a different topic of their choice. Students were asked to post a description of the project along with their team’s name and group members in the ICT-INOV platform.
Step 2. Domain exploration and model development.
Students explored the domain of knowledge engineering and posted their findings on the ICT-INOV platform. They designed a solution to their project in the form of a model for a knowledge-based system. Students posted the model architecture, flowchart and suggested solution algorithm in the ICT-INOV platform.
Step 3. Prototype development and demo.
Students developed a software prototype knowledge-based system and demonstrated it to their peers. The prototype was based on the domain research and model introduced in previous steps. Students posted screenshots and descriptions of the system on the ICT-INOV platform.
