Themes in Education 7:2, 145-164, 2006 ELLINIKA GRAMMATA, Printed in Greece Considering the educational semantic web Dimitris Kanellopoulos 1 Sotiris Kotsiantis 2 and Panayiotis Pintelas 2 dkanellop@teipat.gr ; sotos@math.upatras.gr; pintelas@math.upatras.gr 1 Applied Electronics Laboratory, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Technology, University of Patras, Patras 26500, Greece 2 Educational Software Development Laboratory (ESDLab) Department of Mathematics, University of Patras, Patras 26500, Greece Abstract Web-based Educational Systems (WBES) attempt to employ Semantic Web technologies in order to achieve: a) improved adaptation and flexibility for single and group users, and b) new methods and types of courseware compliant with the Semantic Web. In this paper, we consider the role of advanced networking in Education through the development of the Semantic Web. We provide a state-of-the-art literature review and present tools of e-learning in the Semantic Web. Furthermore, we explore what the Semantic Web can do for Adaptive WBES. Introduction The Semantic Web enriches the World Wide Web with semantic information to enable systems to access and use information more efficiently. The Semantic Web is a concept that enables better machine processing of information on the Web, by structuring documents written for the Web in such a way that they become understandable by machines. The Semantic Web allows content to become aware of it. This awareness allows humans and agents (viz. Internet-based programs that are created to act autonomously) to query and infer knowledge from information quickly and in many cases automatically. Semantic Web technologies will influence the next generation of e-learning systems (Clark et al., 2004). Anderson and Whitelock (2004:3,4) state: “…the Educational Semantic Web is a developing and futuristic vision, which is based on three fundamental affordances: a) the capacity for effective information storage and retrieval, b) the capacity for nonhuman autonomous agents to augment the learning and information retrieval and processing power of human beings and c) the capacity of the Internet to support, extend and expand communications capabilities of humans in multiple formats across the bounds of time and space.” Although there is a capacity and promise of the