Semantic Web-Based Information Systems: State-of-the-Art ...

The Human Semant c Web
• Knowledge.cartographer: Constructs and maintains context maps.
• Knowledge.librarian: Fills context maps with content components.
• Knowledge.composer:.Constructs customized learning modules.
• Knowledge.coach:.Cultivates questions.
• Knowledge.preacher:.Provides live answers.
• Knowledge.plumber: Directs questions to appropriate preachers.
• Knowledge.mentor: Provides a role model and supports self-reflection.
The KM architecture can be seen as a contribution toward the vision of a semantic
learning Web, as stated in Nejdl et al. (2001): “a learning Web infrastructure, which
will make it possible to exchange / author / annotate / organize and personalize /
navigate / use / reuse modular learning objects that support a variety of courses,
disciplines and organizations.”
The.Human.Semantic.Web
The stated goal of the Semantic Web initiative (n.d.) is to enable machine understanding
of Web resources. However, it is not at all evident that such machine-processable
semantic information will be clear and effective for human interpretation. The
hyperlinked structure of the Web presents the user with a totally fluid and dynamic
relationship between context and content, which makes it hard to get an overview
of the context within which the information is presented. As soon as you click on
a hyperlink, you are transferred to a new and often unfamiliar context. This results
in the all too well known surfing-sickness, which could be summarized as “within
what context am I viewing this, and how did I get here?” (Naeve, 2001a). The conclusion
is that extracting usable meaning from Web pages is often as difficult for a
human reader as it is for a machine. This strongly suggests that there is a need for
a human-understandable semantics for Web resources as well.
Hence, in order to effectively harness the powers of the Semantic Web, it needs
a conceptual interface that is more comprehensible for humans. We conceive this
conceptual interface as a form of KM that we call the conceptual Web (Naeve, Nilsson,
& Palmér, 2001) or the human Semantic Web (HSW). The HSW is a mixture
of conceptual and pictorial information landscapes that are linked in the structure of
a KM. It serves as a human-understandable front end that connects to the machineunderstandable
back end of the (machine) Semantic Web.
It is important to emphasize the following (often neglected) facts about metadata:
10
Copyright © 2007, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission
of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.