Design of a Semantic Web-based Brokerage Architecture for the E-learning Domain. A Proposal for a Suitable Ontology

The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information in a machine-processable form can coexist and complement the existing human-readable information, better enabling computers and people to work in co-operation. In this way, some processes that need to be carried out manually today will be performed automatically. E-learning is one of the domains that may benefit from this technology enhancement. We present some of the outcomes from the first author´s PhD, which contributes to the e-learning domain through the proposal of a reference service architecture for Web-based brokerage using semantic Web technologies. In particular, this paper focuses on the underlying ontology that is required for that, introducing several sub-ontologies about, for instance, courses and learning objects, on-line service providers, content providers, learners, etc