Specialized Search Engines for E-learning

The web provides an enormous amount of information and the diffusion of search engines has made this information accessible. Without the use of search engines the web would not have been so successful. The most common search engines are keyword-based, but in general they present various limits related to the quality of the search results. To overcome these limits many authors suggest the use of a specialized search engine. In this paper we propose the use of a specialized search engine to assist students in their learning tasks. We introduce an iterative technique to build a taxonomy which is used to classify documents regarding a specific topic, and a tool that assists users in the taxonomy building process. Finally, we present an application example that by means of a search engine, GPS and mobile learning technologies allows students to access relevant information related to the cultural site they are visiting.