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Perceptions of a system's competence influence acceptance of that system [31]. Ideally, users' perception of competence matches the actual competence of a system. This paper investigates the relation between actual and perceived competence of transparent Semantic Web recommender systems that explain recommendations in terms of shared item concepts. We report an experiment comparing non-transparent and transparent versions of a content-based recommender. Results indicate that in the transparent condition, perceived competence and actual competence (in specific recall) were related, while in the non-transparent condition they were not. Providing insight in what aspects of items triggered their recommendation, by showing the concepts that were the basis for a recommendation, gave users a better assessment of how well the system worked. Keywords: Actual competence; Explanations; Perceived competence; Recommender systems; Transparency

Perceptions of a system’s competence influence acceptance of that system [31]. Ideally, users’ perception of competence matches the actual competence of a system. This paper investigates the relation between actual and perceived competence of transparent Semantic Web recommender systems that explain recommendations in terms of shared item concepts. We report an experiment comparing non-transparent and transparent versions of a content-based recommender. Results indicate that in the transparent condition, perceived competence and actual competence (in specific recall) were related, while in the non-transparent condition they were not. Providing insight in what aspects of items triggered their recommendation, by showing the concepts that were the basis for a recommendation, gave users a better assessment of how well the system worked.

Until recently, the Semantic Web was little more than a name for the next generation Web infrastructure as envisioned by its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee. Now, with the introduction of XML and RDF, and new developments such as RDF Schema and DAML+OIL, the Semantic Web is rapidly taking shape. In this paper, we first give an overview of the state-of-the-art in Semantic Web technology, the key relationships with traditional hypermedia research, and a comprehensive reference list to various sets of literature (Hypertext, Web and Semantic Web). We then present a research agenda by describing the open research issues in the development of the Semantic Web from the perspective of hypermedia research.