Achieving higher-level learning through adaptable Semantic Web applications

In this paper we propose refocusing the research from knowledge portals towards frameworks, which the end user can apply in many decision-making scenarios and which we call ‘personal portals’. Rather than pouring resources into a centralised access to knowledge repository, we suggest a more distributed approach to accessing knowledge. The core facets of such approach include: • choice from multiple ontologies • dynamic selection of ontological frames • customisation of user interaction and knowledge-level inference results • decoupling the content from a variety of contexts using the principles of conceptual (re-)framing. A prototype of such approach Magpie is described to illustrate some of these tenets. Magpie is our ‘zero-overhead’ suite of tools facilitating three distinct perspectives on the Semantic Web: as a methodology for supporting the interpretation of web resources through ‘ontological lenses’, as a tool kit for supporting and realising Semantic Web browsing, and as a framework for building semantic web applications.