Abstract—A number of Semantic Web based system initiatives have been emerging in various fields such as e-governance, healthcare and e-Learning. These initiatives were aimed at incorporating Semantic Web resources for greater adaptability, robustness and seamless services with easy integration of interoperable systems. Ontologies play a vital role in the realization of Semantic Web vision. Semantic Web initiatives based on ontology have emerged as a promising solution to most engineering problems which occur in these fields. However, current efforts in Semantic Web based Educational Systems (SWBES) are focusing mainly on the combination of two popular modalities of learning: web-based educational systems such as e-Learning Management Systems (e-LMS) and Artificial Intelligence in Education Systems (AIED). This research focuses on an ontology driven approach for a SWBES. An Incremental and Iterative Agile Methodology (IIAM) derived from matured software engineering process models have been used for the ontology development. This paper explains the philosophical and engineering aspects of the newly derived methodology. The stages and framework of the methodology have been applied to develop an educational ontology. Ontology organizes the learning hierarchy of Java Programming Language Protégé has been used as an ontology editing tool and an appropriate descriptive language, Web Ontology Language (OWL), was used for the customization. Index Terms—Java programming, methodology, ontology development, semantic web. I. INTRODUCTION The last few years have witnessed a paradigm shift in the World Wide Web, from a global information space of connected documents to a Semantic Web where a formal and sharable Knowledge Based system is key. Semantic Web is a mechanism for presenting information over the web in a format that human beings as well as machines can understand. It is a mesh of information which can be linked in a way that can easily be processed by machines and which can produce resources processed by machines [1]. It aims to produce technologies capable of performing reasoning on semi-structured information [2]. Traditionally, data published on the web has been made available in specific formats Manuscript received September 20, 2015; revised November 27, 2015. Santhosh John is with Middle East College, Oman (e-mail: santhosh@mecit.edu.om). Nazaraf Shah is with the Department of Computing, Coventry University, UK (e-mail: aa0699@coventry.ac.uk). Leonid Smalov is with Creative Computing in Department of Computing, Coventry University, UK (e-mail: csx211@coventry.ac.uk). compromising much of its structure and semantics. In recent years the Web has evolved to one where both data and documents are linked using the structural model of Semantic Web. Semantic Web technologies based on ontologies have emerged as an appropriate engineering solution to the problems of developing systems which ensure the integration and interoperation of data from different sources to provide seamless services to web users. Formal and sharable Knowledge Based system is the key aspect of Semantic Web. Ontologies in particular fulfill the requirements for knowledge representation for the Semantic Web. The concept of ontology is originally taken from philosophy where it means an explicit specification of a conceptualization. In recent years, however, this concept has been introduced and used in different contexts, even playing a predominant role in knowledge engineering [3]. Mizoguchi summarized the merits of ontology as follows: „„Ontology provides a common vocabulary, and an explication of what has been often left implicit‟‟. According to Mizoguchi, the linked data, systematization of knowledge and standardization constitute the backbone of knowledge within a knowledge base system. The main idea behind the Semantic Web vision is to provide an opportunity to represent information on the Web in a way that software agents and systems can understand and manipulate and provide environments which are more adaptable, personalized and intelligent [1]. Ontology is the main building block of Semantic Web vision as it facilitates provision of information in machine processable semantic models and produces semantically modeled knowledge representation systems. The visual representation of the generic concepts of a domain best facilitates both syntactic and semantic knowledge [4]. Linked Data in its simplest form is a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the web. It refers to machine-readable data published on the web in such a way that its meaning is explicitly defined and which can in turn be linked to external data sets [5]. Since ontology is an explicit conceptualization of a domain, it provides the information in machine processable semantic models and produces semantically modeled knowledge representation systems. Ontology is an explicit specification to interpret the common meanings of the key terms of a domain where conceptual information is spread across knowledge bases on the Web. Ontologies have proved to be beneficial to describe concepts unlike Relational Database Systems. Ontology-based approaches have been proposed by many researchers and attempts have been made by domain and knowledge experts to implement ontologies in the domain of Incremental and Iterative Agile Methodology (IIAM): Hybrid Approach for Ontology Design towards Semantic Web Based Educational Systems Development Santhosh John, Nazaraf Shah, and Leonid Smalov International Journal of Knowledge Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 1, March 2016 13 doi: 10.18178/ijke.2016.2.1.044