Cultural Heritage Semantic Portals: a Systematic Literature Review

This work provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating CH semantic portals and an overview of components aiming at increasing the implementation of interoperable Semantic Web applications for cultural heritage (CH). The paper presents a systematic literature review of 77 academic papers published in the last 10 years describing 68 cultural heritage semantic portals through five key research dimensions. First, we examine the semantic layer, documenting the adoption of ontologies (CIDOC-CRM, EDM) and controlled vocabularies (Getty AAT, GeoNames). Second, we investigate resource integration workflows, from data acquisition methods to preprocessing formats. Third, we catalog presentation paradigms across web, mobile, and immersive (AR/VR) platforms, while evaluating framework usage (Omeka S, ResearchSpace) and the presence of advanced research features. Fourth, we examine the technical systems used, such as database tools and ontology software. Finally, we look at organizational factors including project motivation, participating institutions, and how portals are evaluated. Our findings demonstrate uneven adoption of Semantic Web standards, with 20% of portals using non-interoperable ontologies and 41% lacking vocabulary links. While human-centric interfaces dominate, only 24% support machine-readable access via SPARQL. Furthermore, over 50% of the surveyed portals are inaccessible—either due to missing links in the publications or because the provided URLs lead to broken/non-existent pages. The study highlights the need for: (1) improved documentation of implementation practices, (2) reusable open-source tools for data harmonization, and (3) strategies to bridge the gap between large-scale and smaller CH projects.