I’ve decided it is now time to focus on trying to decipher and understand the Semantic Web in more detail. I’ve already covered online learning environments, collective intelligence, and collaborative platforms. Now I’m ready to go on to the holy grail so to speak. It is necessary for me to truly understand the Semantic Web, and how it can be practically applied for collective intelligence, and facilitating breakthrough medical research.
So as I go about the learning process I will be sharing my stages of discovery in progressive postings. The best way to learn is to try and teach others right?
As I mentioned in a previous posting: Semantics according to Merriam-Webster (1986) originates from the Greek word semantikos. Semantics literally means: “significant, to signify, mean, or relating meaning in language. It is the study of meanings.”
The first obvious choice for the best information on the Semantic Web is the W3C itself. In the beginning I’ll run just the facts first, then we’ll break it down into an understandable course section by section.
If you prefer attached you will find a Word document with bullet points to help you remember the material.
Diane Michel – Semantic Web Bullet Points
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Source: Semantic Web FAQ
Resource: W3C-Semantic Web
Retrieved: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ#What1
The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. It is a collaborative effort led by W3C with participation from a large number of researchers and industrial partners.
How would you define the main goals of the Semantic Web?
The vision of the Semantic Web is to extend principles of the Web from documents to data. This extension will allow to fulfill more of the Web’s potential, in that it will allow data to be shared effectively by wider communities, and to be processed automatically by tools as well as manually.
The Semantic Web allows two things.
1. It allows data to be surfaced in the form of real data, so that a program doesn’t have to strip the formatting and pictures and ads off a Web page and guess where the data on it is.
2. It allows people to write (or generate) files which explain €”to a machine €”the relationship between different sets of data. For example, one is able to make a “semantic link ” between a database with a “zip-code” column and a form with a “zip” field that they actually mean the same €“ they are the same abstract concept. This allows machines to follow links and hence automatically integrate data from many different sources.
Semantic Web technologies can be used in a variety of application areas:
1. Data integration, whereby data in various locations and various formats can be integrated in one seamless application.
2. Resource discovery and classification to provide better, domain specific search engine capabilities
3. Cataloging for describing the content and content relationships available at a particular Web site, page, or digital library.
4. Intelligent software agents to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange.
5. Content rating
6. Describing collections of pages that represent a single logical “document”.
7. Describing intellectual property rights of Web pages (see, eg, the Creative Commons), and in many others.
1.2 What are some of the major building blocks of the Semantic Web?
In order to achieve the goals described above, the most important is to be able to define and describe the relations among data (i.e., resources) on the Web.
Similar to using hyperlinks on the current Web that connect the current page with another one, hyperlinks defines a relationship between the current page and the target.
One major difference is that, on the Semantic Web, such relationships can be established between any two resources, there is no notion of “current” page.
Another major difference is that the relationship (i.e, the link) itself is named, whereas the link used by a human on the (traditional) Web is not and their role is deduced by the human reader.
The definition of those relations allow for a better and automatic interchange of data. RDF, which is one of the fundamental building blocks of the Semantic Web, gives a formal definition for that interchange.
On that basis, additional building blocks are built around this central notion. Some examples are:
€¢ Tools to query information described through such relationships (eg, SPARQL)
€¢ Tools to have a finer and more detailed classification and characterization of those relationships. This ensures interoperability and more complex automatic behaviors. For example, a community can agree what name to use for a relationship connecting a page to one’s calendar; this name can then be used by a large number of users and applications without the necessity to redefine such names every time. (E.g., RDF Schemas, OWL, SKOS)
€¢ For more complex cases, tools are available to define logical relationships among resources and the relationships (for example, if a relationships binds a person to his/her email address, it is feasible to declare that the email address is unique, ie, the address is not shared by several persons). (E.g., OWL, Rules)
€¢ Tools to extract from, and to bind to traditional data sources to ensure their interchange with data from other sources. (E.g., GRDDL, RDFa)
Ok. Are you getting very very sleepy on me?
Guess we better wrap this up for tonight. Let’s finish off with a great video from Nova Spivack, creator of Twine Networks.
Nova Spivack – Semantic Web Talk from Nicolas Cynober on Vimeo.
Or if you prefer Power Point Slides to explain the Semantic Web
Nova Spivack’s Making Sense of the Semantic Web
His presentation is provided is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. If you reproduce or redistribute in whole or in part, please give attribution to Nova Spivack, with a link to http://www.mindingtheplanet.net
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References:
W3C Semantic Web (2001). W3C Semantic Web Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved March 5, 2008, from http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ#What1
Spivack, Nova. (n.d.). Making sense of the semantic web. Retrieved March 5, 2008, from http://www.mindingtheplanet.net
Spivack, Nova. (n.d.). Semantic Web talk. Retrieved March 5, 2008, from http://www.vimeo.com/684381