Semantic-Web technologies and ontology-based information processing systems are established techniques, in more than only research areas and institutions. Different worldwide projects and enterprise companies identified already the added value of semantic technologies, so they work on different sub-topics for gathering and conveying knowledge. As the process of gathering and structuring semantic information plays a key role in the most developed applications, the process of transferring and adopting knowledge to and by humans is neglected, although the complex structure of knowledge-design opens many research-questions. The customization of the presentation itself and the interaction techniques with these presentation artifacts is a key question for gainful and effective work with semantic information. The following paper describes a new approach for visualizing semantic information as a composition of different adaptable ontology-visualization techniques. We start with a categorized description of existing ontology visualization techniques and show potential gaps

The enhancement of the individual knowledge is a basic need that came up with changes in our society, whereas the process of learning disappears more and more. In the recent past the disappearance of a predefined learning process was named ambient learning, which came up to cope the changing need of every time and everywhere learning. Learning contents get more structure by new technologies like semantics, which specifies and defines more the semantic structure and with it the meaning of information. Users working with information system are confronted with different processes for getting the required information. The following paper introduces a new visualization technique, which uses the everyday processes of information search for imparting knowledge. The visualization technique utilizes the surplus of semantics to encourage the process of ambient learning.

Abstract. Current search engines present search results in an ordered list even if semantic technologies are used for analyzing user queries and the document contents. The semantic information that is used during the search result generation mostly remains hidden from the user although it significantly supports users in understanding why search results are considered as relevant for their individual query. The approach presented in this paper utilizes visualization techniques for offering visual feedback about the reasons the results were retrieved. It represents the semantic neighborhood of search results, the relations between results and query terms as well as the relevance of search results and the semantic interpretation of query terms for fostering search result comprehension. It also provides visual feedback for query enhancement. Therefore, not only the search results are visualized but also further information that occurs during the search processing is used to improve the visual presentation and to offer more transparency in search result generation. The results of an evaluation in a real application scenario show that the presented approach considerably supports users in assessment and decision-making tasks and alleviates information seeking in digital semantic knowledge bases.

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