W3C and the Semantic Web Charles McCathieNevile - charles@w3.org - - PDF document

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W3C and the Semantic Web

Charles McCathieNevile - charles@w3.org Who is W3C? What do they do? What is the Semantic Web? What is RDF? Why is it interesting?

Who is W3C

An international consortium "leading the Web to its full potential" ~400 members Companies, universities, governments, associations... 67 Staff led by Tim Berners-Lee (creator of the Web) Working groups developing technical specifications

What does W3C do?

"Standards" for the Web, in 4 areas

• 1. Achitecture
• 2. Interaction
• 3. Technology and Society
• 4. Web Accessibility Initiative

Architecture and Interaction

Basic standards for the Web, such as (X)HTML, HTTP, URI MathML, SVG, SMIL, Xforms, ... Internationalisation (i18n), Device Independence Web Services protocols XML, Xlink, XML Schema, XSLT, ...

Web Accessibility Initiative

Access for all, regardless of disability How to make Web pages that work for everyone Development of tools and techniques Promotion of accessibility Review of W3C work to ensure accessibility

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Technology and Society

Security and encryption Content selection Privacy (P3P) Semantic Web (RDF)

Semantic Web?

Processing the Web with computers

• not just people reading and following links

Part of the original vision of the Web Using the Web as a database Major current development of the Web (serious work started mid 1990's)

What is RDF?

Resource Description Framework

A language for the Semantic Web... Written in XML Collecting, merging, querying diverse information Designed as part of the architecture of the Web

How does it work?

Anyone can say anything about anything...

Can combine like this:

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label "creator" "creador" lang "es" label same as primary Author contributor subClass

What can it do?

Merge different "assertions" Encode hierarchies and relations

• a 3rd party can describe 2 independent vocabularies

Annotate existing Web resources Support inferences over partial information

To do things like:

Using RDF to work with image parts (SVG, wordnet, ...) finding relationships between people (foaf) W3C news at a a glance (RSS) Finding people, organising meetings (many)

To reach the vision:

Information Management: A Proposal,

• -Tim Berners-Lee, CERN, March 1989

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Why is it interesting?

Very applicable to bibliographic work

• a major driver was the library community

Allows powerful, extensible thesaurus development Integrates to the Web, and Web formats, well. Working on basic widely available tools

A bibliographic example?

There is a work which has titulo (english) "Theory of Relativity" creador Albert Einstein idioma "Deutsch" version lo de Bartleby version que tiene formato "film" creator "NCAM" EsUnaAlternativa de la versionBartleby ....etc

As a picture?

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"James' dream"...

Making it work in the field. Who, where, what, when, (why,) says who? Look up thesauri in real-time

• in the language closest to mine...

Voice interaction? Pictures? Thesaurus terms?

Using the information...

Publish direct to secured Web Or correct details afterwards (audit trail!!) Allowing ongoing monitoring over data collection Discovering multiple identity Finding patterns Checking consequential events

Why do I believe it?

I tried it! To manage an Italian legal case Documents and translations Witnesses, experts, actors Events, dates, locations Simple extensible tools And I am innocent...

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Thank you

Questions?

This Presentation (will be) http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/talks/040603-ecchrd/all

• -chaals: charles@w3.org

the rest

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