Semantic Ontology Mapping for Interoperability of Learning Resource Systems using a rule-based reasoning approach

Abstract

There is an increasing demand for sharing learning resources between existing learning resource systems to support reusability, exchangeability, and adaptability. The learning resources need to be annotated with ontologies into learning objects that use different metadata standards. These ontologies have introduced the problems of semantic and structural heterogeneity. This research proposes a Semantic Ontology Mapping for Interoperability of Learning Resource Systems. To enable semantic ontology mapping, this research proposes conflict detection and resolution techniques for both semantic and structural conflicts. The Semantic Bridge Ontology has been proposed as a core component for generating mapping rules to reconcile terms defined in local ontologies into terms defined in the target common ontology. This work defines the reasoning rules to classify related learning objects to enhance the powerful deductive reasoning capabilities of the system. As a consequence, ontology-based learning object metadata are generated and used by the semantic query engine to facilitate user queries of learning objects across heterogeneous learning resource systems.