An ontology-based expert system for representing cultural meanings: An example of an Art Museum

Abstract

Fast-growing cultural tourism markets show that tourists' interests in culture have been increasing in recent years. Museums, where cultural heritage is gathered, protected, and displayed, have used various digital museum guide systems to enrich visitors' museum experiences. However, most of these systems were designed to introduce each exhibit and thus have limited capability to identify relationships between different exhibits. Using an exhibition in Asia University Museum of Modern Art as an example, this research developed an ontology-based expert system as a new museum guide system to encode relationships among artworks and artists and reveal the cultural meanings of exhibits, making museum visits more meaningful and educational.