Explanation in the Semantic Web: a survey of the state of the art

Semantic Web applications use interconnected distributed data and inferential capabilities to compute their results. The users of Semantic Web applications might find it difficult to understand how a result is produced or how a new piece of information is derived in the process. Explanation enables users to understand the process of obtaining results. Explanation adds transparency to the process of obtaining results and enables user trust on the process. The concept of providing explanation has been first introduced in expert systems and later studied in different application areas. This paper provides a brief review of existing research on explanation in the Semantic Web.