Ontology Frames for IT Courseware Representation

Abstract

This chapter introduces topic maps and skill maps technologies as a framework for storing courseware and relevant user profiles. It is a result of research being conducted on creating a knowledge exchange platform for the corporate environment. It briefly describes topic maps and skill maps – a new concept developed by the authors. It then proposes applying ontology frames to latter technologies. The proposition is followed by specification of a proposed solution. This solution is used in the Knowledge e-Marketplace for a Courseware Distribution project that is being developed at The Poznan University of Economics, Poland. The project’s target is to integrate traditional e-Marketplace with topic map technology and to introduce a new technology – skill maps – for representing an individual employee’s knowledge. There is a need to create common ontology frames for topic maps and skill maps in order to coherently represent knowledge and knowledge profiles.