Determining Information Usefulness in the Semantic Web: A Distributed Cognition Approach

Determining the usefulness of domain-specific information in the Semantic Web is a critical operational precondition that must be addressed in order to realize the Semantic Web’s potential. We approach the problem through the notion of distributed cognition, which emphasizes the inclusion of external elements in agents’ thinking processes. We concentrate on multi-agent scenarios of distributing cognition, meaning that a single externalized piece of distributed cognition can be internalized and utilized by multiple agents. We decompose the problem of determining information usefulness into the problems of understanding the information and subsequently determining its relevance.