Semantic Web Approach to Academic Program Assessment*

Generally, the engineering program assessment process in line with an accreditation body involves some cyclic and tiring paperwork before any weakness is identified in the system. Additionally, the current state of such systems is that the assessment data are spread over many sub-systems, and there is no way to use them intelligently for better academic process management. It has been a desire of academic institutions to develop these processes in such a way that program management is also facilitated through an integrated system connecting all stakeholders of the program. This paper describes an electrical engineering program assessment process that has been developed and implemented using web semantics to provide intelligent services through an integrated system. The integrated system provides a value-added semantics layer where activities such as annotation, querying and reasoning can be carried out to support management. The framework is developed with a case study of a United Arab Emirates (UAE) University program assessment process to show how semantic web technologies can be used to facilitate program management.