Semantic web technology to support learning about the semantic web

This paper describes ASPL, an Advanced Semantic Platform for Learning, designed using the Magpie framework with an aim to support students learning about the Semantic Web research area. We describe the evolution of ASPL and illustrate how we used the results from a formal evaluation of the initial system to re-design the user functionalities. The second version of ASPL semantically interprets the results provided by a non-semantic web mining tool and uses them to support various forms of semantics-assisted exploration, based on pedagogical strategies such as performing later reasoning steps and problem space filtering

Semantic web technology for web-based teaching and learning: A roadmap

The World-Wide Web has become the predominant platform for computer-aided instruction. Contentorientation, access and interactive features have made the Web a successful technology. The Web, however, is still evolving. We expect in particular Semantic Web technology to substantially impact Web-based teaching and learning. In this paper, we examine the potential of this technology and how we expect it to influence content representation and the work of the instructor and the learner

Handling huge and complex 3D geometries with Semantic Web technology

In INCEPTION, a European collaborative research project, a Heritage BIM (H-BIM) ontology is being developed to store all relevant semantic data concerning cultural heritage objects. Similar to other projects dealing with storing semantics, one of the major questions is whether, and if yes, how should geometry be stored using semantic web technology. The INCEPTION cross-disciplinary research consortium chose to allow the storage of all relevant geometric information using semantic web technology. The alternative is to store geometry in a different way, or storing only the aggregated parts of geometry, for example through bounding box representations

Towards the improvement of the Semantic Web technology

The Semantic Web technology needs to be thoroughly evalu- ated for providing objective results and to attain a massive improvement in their quality in order to be consolidated in the industrial and in the academic world. This paper presents software benchmarking as a process to carry out over the SemanticWeb technology in order to improve it and to search for best practices. It also describes a software benchmarking methodology and provides recommendations for performing evaluations in benchmarking activities

AKTing for the Consumer

Knowledge management is all about delivering data to the right person at the right time and in the right format. Yet there are massive amounts of very valuable data stored in inaccessible databases, and written in machine unreadable formats. The applications below attempt to unlock the potential of some of this data, and serve it back to the consumer. Funded by the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) to demonstrate how Semantic Web technology can be used by government to unlock the potential of public sector information

Using Semantic Web Technology to Automate Data Integration in Grid and Web Service Architectures

While the Grid and Web Services have helped us support heterogeneous resource access through the use of service oriented architectures, they have not addressed the issue of heterogeneous data representation. Since service providers often describe their service interfaces using different data models than those assumed by the client, it is common for additional processing to be required to compensate for the mismatch in data formats. By utilising technology from the Semantic Web, we are able to augment existing Web Service systems with middleware to automatically perform data harmonisation when a syntactic mismatch occurs. To achieve this, we have developed a mapping language which can be used to annotate XML data structures with OWL concepts and properties, a Mapping Language Engine to implement this language, and a Dynamic Web Service Invocation component to execute Web Services

Integrating Distributed Sources of Information for Construction Cost Estimating using Semantic Web and Semantic Web Service technologies

A construction project requires collaboration of several organizations such as owner, designer, contractor, and material supplier organizations. These organizations need to exchange information to enhance their teamwork. Understanding the information received from other organizations requires specialized human resources. Construction cost estimating is one of the processes that requires information from several sources including a building information model (BIM) created by designers, estimating assembly and work item information maintained by contractors, and construction material cost data provided by material suppliers. Currently, it is not easy to integrate the information necessary for cost estimating over the Internet. This paper discusses a new approach to construction cost estimating that uses Semantic Web technology. Semantic Web technology provides an infrastructure and a data modeling format that enables accessing, combining, and sharing information over the Internet in a machine processable format. The estimating approach presented in this paper relies on BIM, estimating knowledge, and construction material cost data expressed in a web ontology language. The approach presented in this paper makes the various sources of estimating data accessible as Simple Protocol and Resource Description Framework Query Language (SPARQL) endpoints or Semantic Web Services. We present an estimating application that integrates distributed information provided by project designers, contractors, and material suppliers for preparing cost estimates. The purpose of this paper is not to fully automate the estimating process but to streamline it by reducing human involvement in repetitive cost estimating activities