Semantic Web

The semantic web is a technological approach to making it easier to exchange data between information systems, using not only Web technologies, but also the use of shared agreements (as established by schemata, ontologies and logic) to facilitate some of the automated aspects of the knowledge exchange.

Definition

From the W3C at http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

"The Semantic Web is a web of data. There is lots of data we all use every day, and its not part of the web. I can see my bank statements on the web, and my photographs, and I can see my appointments in a calendar. But can I see my photos in a calendar to see what I was doing when I took them? Can I see bank statement lines in a calendar?

Why not? Because we don't have a web of data. Because data is controlled by applications, and each application keeps it to itself.

The Semantic Web is about two things. It is about common formats for interchange of data, where on the original Web we only had interchange of documents. Also it is about language for recording how the data relates to real world objects. That allows a person, or a machine, to start off in one database, and then move through an unending set of databases which are connected not by wires but by being about the same thing." (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/)

Progress Report

"In Feb 2004, The World Wide Web Consortium released the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the OWL Web Ontology Language (OWL) as W3C Recommendations. RDF is used to represent information and to exchange knowledge in the Web. OWL is used to publish and share sets of terms called ontologies, supporting advanced Web search, software agents and knowledge management."

The W3C page lists commercial products using the specifications.

More Information

An interview with Tim Berners-Lee at http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/semanticweb.php

A semantic web overview at http://ontoworld.org/wiki/Semantic_Web_overview