Combining Ontology Development Methodologies and Semantic Web Platforms for E-government Domain Ontology Development

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how combining ontology development methodologies with Semantic Web platforms like Protege and Jena can effectively create interoperable e-government ontologies, providing practical guidelines especially for developing countries.

Contribution

It integrates an established ontology building methodology with Semantic Web tools to develop government domain ontologies, offering detailed practical guidelines for e-government applications.

Findings

Successful development of a government domain ontology using combined methodologies and platforms.

Enhanced guidelines for e-government developers in semantic content creation.

Strengthened adoption of semantic technologies in e-government projects.

Abstract

One of the key challenges in electronic government (e-government) is the development of systems that can be easily integrated and interoperated to provide seamless services delivery to citizens. In recent years, Semantic Web technologies based on ontology have emerged as promising solutions to the above engineering problems. However, current research practicing semantic development in e-government does not focus on the application of available methodologies and platforms for developing government domain ontologies. Furthermore, only a few of these researches provide detailed guidelines for developing semantic ontology models from a government service domain. This research presents a case study combining an ontology building methodology and two state-of-the-art Semantic Web platforms namely Protege and Java Jena ontology API for semantic ontology development in e-government. Firstly, a framework adopted from the Uschold and King ontology building methodology is employed to build a domain ontology describing the semantic content of a government service domain. Thereafter, UML is used to semi-formally represent the domain ontology. Finally, Protege and Jena API are employed to create the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Resource Description Framework (RDF) representations of the domain ontology respectively to enable its computer processing. The study aims at: (1) providing e-government developers, particularly those from the developing world with detailed guidelines for practicing semantic content development in their e-government projects and (2), strengthening the adoption of semantic technologies in e-government. The study would also be of interest to novice Semantic Web developers who might used it as a starting point for further investigations.