Knowledge Evolution for Curriculum Development Alexei Tretiakov Department of Information Systems, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand A.Tretiakov@massey.ac.nz Takako Tretiakov Wellington Diocesan School for Girls (Nga Tawa), Marton, New Zealand takakotretiakov@ngatawa.school.nz Roland Kaschek Department of Information Systems, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand R.H.Kaschek@massey.ac.nz ABSTRACT Curriculum development presupposes knowledge regarding the subject that has to be taught. With respect to teaching Japanese script that knowledge should include information regarding the relative importance of Kanji characters, as these establish the core of Japanese script. The more frequent Kanji characters obviously should be taught earlier than the less frequent ones. So far, for ranking Kanji characters, teachers relied on frequency dictionaries. These are traditionally compiled based only on an analysis of printed sources that are available at the analysis deadline. Such analysis traditionally takes a long time, is expensive and covers only the media in which language evolution is relatively slow. So the provided knowledge usually is not up-to-date. To provide up-to-date knowledge we introduce a prototype of a Web information system. It applies the Google Web APIs (beta) web service to rank Kanji characters, based on the corpus of documents provided by the global Internet. That API can also be used for determining limited scope Kanji characters rankings: in parts of the global Internet rather than in the whole Internet, or in documents published within a given period of time. We demonstrate that the ranking obtained is overall consistent with the conventional frequency ranking provided in dictionaries, but differs from it in non-trivial ways. Also, we show how the Internet-based Kanji character ranking can be used to assess a Japanese language curriculum. Key Words : curriculum development, Japanese Kanji characters, knowledge evolution 1. Introduction The relative importance of different Kanji characters forming the core of Japanese script is a major factor in deciding the sequence of topics in Japanese language teaching, with the most prominent example being the allocation of Kanji to grades advocated by the Jooyoo Kanji list (see, e.g., [5]) enforced in Japan as a government-backed standard. So far, for ranking Kanji characters teachers relied on frequency dictionaries the compilation of which is based on an analysis of sources printed within a defined period of time and available at a given date, with the most widely known sources being [2, 5]. The acceptance of the Internet as a business tool is growing. The corpus of documents it offers thus should be targeted in language teaching. The Japanese language as used in the Internet is likely to evolve differently from the language as reflected in printed documents, as in general etiquette in the Internet is relaxed. As in the Internet as well as in conventional market places companies attempt to adaptively target separate regions, the ability to access and to disseminate information in different