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

One of the key challenges in electronic government (e-government) is the development of systems that canbe 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 aboveengineering problems. However, current research practicing semantic development in e-government doesnot focus on the application of available methodologies and platforms for developing government domainontologies. Furthermore, only a few of these researches provide detailed guidelines for developingsemantic ontology models from a government service domain. This research presents a case studycombining an ontology building methodology and two state-of-the-art Semantic Web platforms namelyProtégé and Java Jena ontology API for semantic ontology development in e-government. Firstly, aframework adopted from the Uschold and King ontology building methodology is employed to build adomain ontology describing the semantic content of a government service domain. Thereafter, UML isused to semi-formally represent the domain ontology. Finally, Protégé and Jena API are employed tocreate the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Resource Description Framework (RDF) representationsof the domain ontology respectively to enable its computer processing. The study aims at: (1) providing egovernmentdevelopers, particularly those from the developing world with detailed guidelines forpracticing semantic content development in their e-government projects and (2), strengthening theadoption of semantic technologies in e-government. The study would also be of interest to novice SemanticWeb developers who might used it as a starting point for further investigations.