The Semantic Web: A Web of Machine Processible Data

1. The Semantic Web: A Web of Machine Processible Data Eric Miller, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead Phone: 1.617.258.5714, Email:em@w3.org http://www.w3.org/People/EM/ http://www.w3.org/2004/Talks/0908-egov-em/

2. Bio • Eric Miller is the Activity Lead for the W3C World Wide Web Consortium's Semantic Web Initiative. • Eric's responsibilities include the architectural and technical leadership in the design and evolution of Semantic Web infrastructure. Responsibilities additionally include working with W3C Working Group members so that both working groups in the Semantic Web activity, as well as other W3C activities, produce Web standards that support Semantic Web requirements. Additionally, to build support among user and vendor communities for the Semantic Web by illustrating the benefits to those communities and means of participating in the creation of a metadata-ready Web. And finally to establish liaisons with other technical standards bodies involved in Web-related technology to ensure compliance with existing Semantic Web standards and collect requirements for future W3C work. • Before joining the W3C, Eric was a Senior Research Scientist at OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. and the co-founder and Associate Director of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. • Eric is a Research Scientist at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

3. Table of Contents • The Semantic Web: A Web of Machine Processible Data • The World Wide Web Consortium • Semantic Web Goals: Data Integration at Web Scale • Semantic Web Goals: Data Integration at Web Scale- Continued • What is a Web of Data? • What is a Web of Data? - Continued • A Web of Data • Wrapping the Existing Web - Extending beyond current capabilities • Brandsoft: Web Data Integration within Organizations • TAP: Web Data Integration across Organizations • Semantic Web Activity - Phase 2 • RDF Data Access Working Group - Objectives • RDF Data Access Working Group - Status

4. Table of Contents(continued) • Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group - Objectives • Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group - Status • Phase 2 Objectives • Haystack - Semantic Web at the Individual scale • Simile: Semantic Web at the Institutional Scale • Semantic Web in Life Sciences: Community Scale • Social Demands on Semantic Web Architecture • Lessons Learned • Future Directions • A Semantic Web for E-Government • A Semantic Web for E-Government - Continued • Conclusions • Additional information

5. The Semantic Web: A Web of Machine Processible Data • Eric Miller, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead • Semantic Technologies for E-GovernmentSeptember 8-9, 2004McLean, VA, USA • Slides are available at: http://www.w3.org/2004/Talks/0908-egov-em/

6. The World Wide Web Consortium • International consortium directed by Tim Berners-Lee • Mission: "Lead the Web to its full potential" • Hosts: MIT, ERCIM, Keio University • Defines Web standards: • HTML, CSS, XML, XML Security • Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) • Web Services (SOAP, WSDL, etc.) • Semantic Web • Method: • technical specifications developed with Working Groups and extensive public review • advanced development to chart long term architectural directions • W3C track record: building infrastructure to address technical and social needs of the Web

7. Semantic Web Goals: Data Integration at Web Scale • Web of data - provides common data representation framework to facilitate integrating multiple sources to draw new conclusions • Increase the utility of information by connecting it to its definitions and to its context • More efficient information access and analysis • Enable "smart data", resulting in more effective collaboration and reuse of data at fractal scales (personal, group, organization, community, web)

8. Semantic Web Goals: Data Integration at Web Scale(continued) • E.G. not just "color" but a concept denoted by a Web identifier: • <http://pantone.tm.example.com/2002/std6#color> • Semantic Web foundation specifications are W3C Recommendations as of Feb 2004 (press release and testimonials) • Future work is underway (more on this later)

9. What is a Web of Data? Thinking back a bit... circa 1993 FTP, Gopher and Archie: popular for sharing resources on the Internet Stopped at the file level

10. What is a Web of Data?(continued) Thinking back a bit... circa 1994 HTML and URIs Markup language and means for connecting resources Below the file level Stopped at the text level

11. What is a Web of Data?(continued) And Now XML, RDF, OWL and URIs Markup language and means for connecting resources Below the file level Below the text level At the data level

12. Wrapping the Existing Web - Extending beyond current capabilities Web Evolution not Revolution Providing common means for exposing data hiding in documents, servers and databases Machine Processible data on the Web

13. Brandsoft: Web Data Integration within Organizations Brandsoft: focus on 'Enterprise Business Models‘ Strategic models for controlling and publishing Web sites across extended enterprise operations Models for content management, page publishing, access Models represented in RDF Common models allow for distributed maintenance across organization with coherent integrated result

14. TAP: Web Data Integration across Organizations

15. Semantic Web Activity - Phase 2 • Semantic Web foundation specifications are W3C Recommendations as of Feb 2004 (press release and testimonials) • Open Standards and Open Source tools, technologies for modeling real world things; sharing these models across the Web • Phase 2 Launched in Feb 2003 • RDF Data Access - "Joining the Web" • Deployment and Best Practices • Advanced Development • Focus on Deployment / Facilitating 'Network Effect'

16. RDF Data Access Working Group - Objectives • Gather requirements and define an HTTP and/or SOAP-based protocol for selecting instances of subgraphs from an RDF graph • The goal of this work is to help make it as easy to 'join' data on the Web as it is to merge tables in a local relational database • Use Cases: What is RDF Data Access for? • Personal information management • Product life-cycle data management • Publishing • Transportation / Tourism

17. RDF Data Access Working Group - Status • Chartered in February 2004; Chair Dan Connolly, W3C • 1st F2F Amsterdam meeting April 2004; 3rd F2F next week in Bristol, England • Published most recent RDF Data Access Use Cases and Requirements in August 2004 • Draft Query Language for RDF expected Sept / Oct 2004 • Feedback / Comments welcome! public-rdf-dawg-comments@w3.org • Last call in Jan 2005 (or before!)

18. Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group - Objectives • Provide guidance, in the form of documents and demonstrators, for developers of Semantic Web applications. • Develop consensus best practices on ontology engineering guidelines, vocabulary development, educational material and demo applications. • Support initiatives for transforming selected high-visibility ontologies and Thesauri to OWL and RDF.

19. Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group - Status • Chartered in February 2004; Chair Guus Schrieber, Free University Amsterdam and David Wood, Tucana • 1st F2F meeting March 2004 • Several Working Drafts • Representing Specified Values in OWL: "value partitions" and "value sets." • Defining N-ary Relations on the Semantic Web: Use With Individuals which presents ontology patterns for representing n-ary relations • Representing Classes As Property Values on the Semantic Web which address the issue of using classes as property values in OWL. • Active or near-term Task Forces: Ontology Engineering Patterns (guidelines), Porting Thesauri to RDF and OWL, Porting WordNet to RDF/OWL, Explaining how RDF/OWL fit into the XHTML, XML, SOAP, WSDL world, How to embed RDF in XHTML, and using XML Schema Datatypes with RDF/OWL.

20. Phase 2 Objectives • Foundation technologies with strong support from industry and open source community • Working Groups (Data Access and Best Practices) provide near term solutions for stitching together data on the web • Coupled with Advanced Development, Open Source community • Fosters network effect of many semantic webs (personal, organization, community) spaces

21. Haystack - Semantic Web at the Individual scale User configurable universal information client Personalization of information management Universal information client - benefits from universal model of information RDF model represents everything - data, layout, preferences, etc.

22. Simile: Semantic Web at the Institutional Scale Simile: Semantic Web meets Digital libraries and personal information management. Integrated project amoung W3C, HP, MIT Libraries, and MIT's Lab for Computer Science. Simile will leverage and extend DSpace, enhancing its support for arbitrary schemas and metadata. Implement a digital asset dissemination architecture based upon Web standards. Architecture supports integration of heterogeneous data sources; common interface, framework for navigation.

23. Semantic Web in Life Sciences: Community Scale • Recognized need for effective data integration from heterogeneous collections • "Connecting the dots" from independent observations • Increasingly available datasets in RDF (e.g. Uniprot in RDF, Affymetrix RDF data on splice variation and protein motifs) • Lifescience information syndication (e.g. Nature Publishing Groups use of RSS, CMLRss) and reusable opensource software / services (e.g. urchin) • Distributed collaboration (e.g. Distributed Annotation services and W3C's Annotea work) - "anyone can say anything about anything" • LSID - Life Science Identifiers • Increasing vendor interest in applying Semantic Web related solutions to Life Science (e.g. Oracle's NDM and Sun's Swordfish) • Semantic Web and Life Sciences Workshop - Oct 27,28, Cambridge MA

24. Social Demands on Semantic Web Architecture • The Transparency Paradox • practical need for greater data integration • social call for privacy boundaries • Requirements • Privacy and Security • High-granularity access control • Intellectual Property management • W3C has faced these on the Web today • Platform for Privacy Preferences • XML Signature, Encryption, Key Management • DRD/DRM, in progress

25. Lessons Learned • RDF and OWL as general information models are applicable to many uses (many of which we never even thought about) • Common data representation and architecture drives down (technical / social) costs • Facilitates serendipitous interoperability - breaking down the barriers of domain knowledge • When "Anyone can say anything about anything", who you trust is important • Beneficial to solving interoperability in Open (rather than Closed) systems • Closed systems are becoming more and more Open - addressing these issues now is cost effective in near, middle and long term

26. Future Directions • Facilitate Semantic Web infrastructure - stimulate the network effect of data • Development of ontology registries for Open vocabularies to help bootstrap application deployment in interoperable manners • Increased focus on stimulating domain-specific / vertical-market applications • Investigate additional enabling standards that help build the Semantic Web (e.g. Semantic Web Rules) • Enabling a Policy Aware Semantic Web

27. A Semantic Web for E-Government • Semantic Web for E-Government - spans personal, organizational and community boundaries • Provide foundation components for the Semantic Web (e.g. geographical place) • Open Data - Open APIs • Webify taxonomies and classification schemes - use URIs for terms • Webify services - chances are these will be useful to other communities as well • Encourage / educate persistence - no 404s • Facilitate creation, management and articulation of policies associated with vocabulary / ontology development

28. A Semantic Web for E-Government(continued) • Declare Vocabularies on the Web • Tie together people, projects, departments - social networks • Share with others / learn from others • Increase awareness of Semantic Web ideas and standards • Demand RDF - "I want my data back!" • Model your real world, not documents • Experiment with / continue to use open source toolkits

29. Conclusions • Semantic Web is stimulating a whole new class of applications at individual, enterprise and web scale. • Foundation specifications are in place. • Focusing on practical deployment with an eye toward future standards. • Growing number of user / domain communities; opportunities for more effective sharing of experience and knowledge. • Recognizing fundamental social/technical design challenges exist in building an infrastructure that responds to new pressures on core societal values.

30. Additional information • W3C World Wide Web Consortium • http://www.w3.org/ • W3C Semantic Web Activity • http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ • Eric Miller, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead • http://www.w3.org/People/EM/