Semantic Web Implications for Web Portals

A Web portal is a gateway to the information and services on the Web, where its users can interchange and share information. In their brief lifetime, Web portals have benefited various sectors of the society and found widespread use (Jafari & Sheehan, 2003; Tatnall, 2005). By careful aggregation of information, Web portals simplify access, as well as decrease the time and effort of locating resources on topical themes. In doing so, they have created a sense of community with common interests. It is crucial that a Web portal be able to capture, represent, and syndicate information adequately. To that regard, the Web portals today face the challenges of increasing amounts of information, diversity of users and user contexts, and everincreasing variations in proliferating computing platforms. They need to continue being a successful business model for providers and continue to be useful to their user community in the light of these challenges. This article discusses the potential of Semantic Web technologies in tackling the issues of agility, sustainability, and maintainability of the information architecture of domain-specific Web portals. The organization of the article is as follows. We first outline the background necessary for the discussion that follows and state our position. This is followed by a detailed treatment of social prospects and technical concerns pertaining to knowledge representation of integrating Semantic Web technologies in Web portals. Next, challenges and directions for future research are outlined and, finally, concluding remarks are given.