The aim of this paper is to show a new model (under development by the E-Learning & Knowledge Management Laboratory at the University of Genoa) for designing and developing units of learning. The idea behind this model comes from the analysis of the difficulties and problems that teachers have in their work during the instructional design of courses and training aids, and from a study on the latest semantic web technologies in order to support the sharing and the retrieval of web learning resources.

The authors will also present the draft version of CADDIE (Content Automated Design & Development Integrated Editor), a software tool under development at the E-Learning & Knowledge Management Laboratory of the University of Genoa, whose core is based on the model described here and whose aim is to provide an innovative solution to the learning content of the instructional design process, based on an ontological structure.