An agent-based semantic Web department content management system

The semantic Web promises to bring the Web to its full potential by standardizing the protocols for metadata. It enables a knowledge-based Web to provide a qualitatively new level of service. It also provides intelligent access to heterogeneous, distributed information, which enabling both software agents and human users to exchange information. This paper presents architecture of an agent-based semantic Web department content management system. This system is called aSDMS and is designed for managing a typical department at a higher education institute. The system extracts information from existing department resources, such as the department´s Website (e.g. the home page of the department), course catalogue and professor´s personal Web pages. A set of ontologies representing information used by students and faculty members is described, where resource description framework (RDF) and RDF schema (RDFS) is used. The user of this system is able to navigate and edit the information through a Web interface. This paper discusses the semantic Web technology within the context of higher education. The feasibility and the potential of adopting the semantic Web technologies to improve department content management are demonstrated by implementing a prototype, using RDF Gateway.