An Ontology of Construction Education for E-learning via the Semantic Web

Recent developments in technologies make the World Wide Web more intelligent and provide higher-level services to its users through the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web is an extension of the current World Wide Web, promoting information that is intended not only for human readers, but also can be processed by machines, enabling intelligent information services and semantically empowered search engines. This has a number of important implications for Web-based education, since Web-based education has become an important branch of educational technology. Although this technology is relatively new with limited use within various educational domains, its potential has not yet been explored within the construction education domain. The integration of the Semantic Web will provide platform independence and intelligence in Web-based educational applications for construction education and a solution to e-learning tools that have become redundant as a result of the fast developments in technologies. This paper gives an overview of the development of e-learning in construction, highlighting the key pedagogical and technical concepts and enablers to Semantic Web technology. The paper also describes an approach adopted for the development of ` ontology' within the construction domain and its integration to define the educational content, both semantically and pedagogically to enable a platformindependent architecture for both learners and educators.