Skills Graph for Course Discovery and Prerequisite Mapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Online course providers face challenges in helping students identify relevant courses due to the large number of offerings, as students may not be aware of prerequisite skills needed for successful course completion, leading to learner dissatisfaction and dropouts.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing a skills graph database to map skills to courses, including a hierarchy of skill dependencies, allows for personalized recommendations by traversing the skills graph to identify relevant courses, prerequisite skills, and related skills, thereby enhancing course discovery and learner success.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If the online course provider offers a large number of courses, then the variety and quantity of course offerings increase, but it becomes difficult for students to identify relevant courses
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a skills graph as an intermediary data structure that maps skills to courses and establishes hierarchical relationships between skills. This skills graph serves as a mediator between the large number of courses and student queries, enabling efficient retrieval of relevant courses based on skill matching rather than brute-force searching through all courses.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical approach of manually browsing or searching through large numbers of courses with an automated graph traversal system. The computer system automatically traverses the skills graph to identify courses matching student skills, substituting manual course identification with automated graph-based query processing.
2Ease of operation
If students enroll in courses without knowing prerequisite skills, then course enrollment is simplified, but learner satisfaction decreases and dropout rates increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by using the skills graph to proactively identify and present prerequisite skills to students before they enroll in courses. The system traverses the skills graph to determine what skills are required for course success and presents this information in advance, allowing students to prepare appropriately before enrollment.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent incorporates feedback mechanisms where the system analyzes student skills against course requirements using the skills graph, then provides feedback to students about their readiness for specific courses. This feedback loop helps students understand what skills they need to develop before attempting certain courses, improving their likelihood of success.
Data Source
AI summary
In one general aspect, a computer-implemented method can include receiving, by a computer system, a name for a course, receiving, by the computer system, a selection of a skill, storing, in a first database included in the computer system, the skill tagged to the course, creating a skills graph including tagged skills for a plurality of courses including the course, the skills graph providing a graph of a skills hierarchy for the course, storing, in a second database included in the computer system, the skills graph, receiving, by the computer system, a query for the skill, and in response to receiving the query, traversing the skills graph, the traversing identifying the skill as a tagged skill for at least the course, and based on identifying the skill as a tagged skill for the course, identifying the name for the course.