Semantic mapper

A semantic mapper is tool or service that aids in the transformation of data elements from one namespace into another namespace. A semantic mapper is an essential component of a semantic broker and one tool that is enabled by the Semantic Web technologies.

Essentially the problems arising in semantic mapping are the same as in data mapping for data integration purposes, with the difference that here the semantic relationships are made explicit through the use of semantic nets or ontologies which play the role of data dictionaries in data mapping.

Structure of a semantic mapper

A semantic mapper must have access to three data sets:

A semantic mapper processes on a list of data elements in the source namespace. The semantic mapper will successively translate the data elements from the source namespace to the destination namespace. The mapping does not necessarily need to be a one-to-one mapping. Some data elements may map to several data elements in the destination.