Ontologies-Based Platform for Sociocultural Knowledge Management

Abstract

In this paper, we present a sociocultural platform aiming at persevering and capitalizing sociocultural events in Senegal. This platform relies on Semantic Web technologies. First, we discuss the two ontologies we provided to support our platform: an upper-level sociocultural ontology and a human time ontology (HuTO). To build our upper-level ontology, we proposed a methodology based on the theory of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky called “Vygotskian Framework”. We also present how the upper-level ontology can be matched in the linked open data cloud. On the other hand, we present the HuTO of which major contributions are (i) the modeling of non-convex intervals (repetitive interval) like every Monday, (ii) representation of deictic temporal expressions which form specific relations with time speech and (iii) qualitative temporal notions which are temporal notions relative to a culture or a geographical position. Finally, we discuss the platform designed on top of Semantic MediaWiki to apply our scientific contributions. Indeed, the platform allows Senegalese communities to share and co-construct their sociocultural knowledge.