Semantic Web

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web

Overview: Activity Statement | Specifications | Presentations | Groups

Nearby: Advanced Development | Semantic Web Coordination | RDF | RDF Core | Web Ontology | Interest Group | Developer Tools

News and Events

• RDF Core Working Draft Document Suite Published : 2002-04-30, The RDF Core Working Group has released the suite of Working Draft documents comprising the primary deliverables of this group. These documents include newly released RDF Primer, RDF Model Theory RDF Test Cases, RDF Schema and the previously released RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised) Working Drafts.
• New RDF/XML Syntax Working Draft Published : 2002-03-25, The RDF Core Working Group has released a new RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised) Working Draft. With new support for XML Base, the document updates the grammar in the Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification in terms of the XML Infoset and RDF Model Theory.
• W3C RDF Primer Working Draft Announced : 2002-03-22, The RDF Core Working Group has released the first public Working Draft of the RDF Primer. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a general-purpose language for representing information in the Web. This primer provides the fundamentals required to use RDF in applications.
• IsaViz - A Visual Authoring Tool for RDF Announced : 2002-03-20, W3C's Semantic Web Advanced Development initiative announces the release of IsaViz, a visual environment for browsing and authoring RDF models represented as graphs. Developed by Emmanuel Pietriga of W3C and Xerox Research Centre Europe, IsaViz is based on the Xerox Visual Transformation Machine, Hewlett-Packard's Jena, Graphviz from AT&T Research, and Apache's Xerces.
• Requirements for W3C Web Ontology Language Published : 2002-03-08, The Web Ontology Working Group has released a Working Draft of requirements for the Ontology Web Language (OWL) 1.0. Automated tools can use common sets of terms called ontologies to power services such as more accurate Web search, intelligent software agents, and knowledge management.
• New RDF Model Theory Note Published : 2002-02-14, The RDF Core Working Group has released the second public Working Draft of RDF Model Theory. This document provides an substantive update to original draft intended to provide a precise semantic theory for RDF and RDFS, and to sharpen the notions of consequence and inference in RDF.

Syndicate this page via RSS 1.0, an RDF vocabulary. Archived news related to the Activity is also availiable.

Introduction

Facilities to put machine-understandable data on the Web are becoming a high priority for many communities. The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. For the Web to scale, tomorrow's programs must be able to share and process data even when these programs have been designed totally independently. The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having data on the web defined and linked in a way that it can be used by machines not just for display purposes, but for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications.

W3C Semantic Web Activity Statement

If you are a member of the public coming to this site you can read about what W3C is doing in this area in our Semantic Web Activity statement. Accompanied by a page of explanatory material to bring you up to speed, the Activity statement sums up W3C's present involvement in this area.

The Semantic Web Activity is a successor to the W3C Metadata Activity.

See also: Semantic Web Advanced Development

Specifications

• Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification
  W3C Recommendation 22 February 1999
  Ora Lassila, Ralph R. Swick, eds.
• RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema
  W3C Working Draft
  Dan Brickley, R.V. Guha, eds.
• RDF Model Theory
  W3C Working Draft
  Patrick Hayes, ed.
• RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised)
  W3C Working Draft
  Dave Beckett, ed.
• RDF Test Cases
  W3C Working Draft
  Jan Grant, Dave Beckett, eds.
• RDF Primer
  W3C Working Draft
  Frank Manola, Eric Miller, eds.
• Requirements for a Web Ontology Language
  W3C Working Draft
  Jeff Heflin, Raphael Volz, Jonathan Dale eds.

Publications

• The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001, Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila
• Web Architecture: Describing and Exchanging Data, W3C Note 7 June 1999, Tim Berners-Lee, Dan Connolly, Ralph R. Swick
• Semantic Web History: Nodes and Arcs 1989-1999 The WWW Proposal and RDF, 1999-11-12, Dan Brickley
• A roadmap to the Semantic Web, Sep 1998, Tim Berners-Lee
• W3C Semantic Web Activity, Nov 2001, Proceedings of the Semantic Web Kick-off Seminar in Finland, Marja-Riitta Koivunen and Eric Miller

Presentations

• Pitfalls and Practicalities of Reasoning on the Web presented by Eric Prud'hommeaux at Schloss Dagstuhl Conference on Rule Markup Techniques, Feb 2, 2002, Dagstuhl, Germany
• W3C Semantic Web Activity by Marja-Riitta Koivunen presented at Semantic Web Kick-off in Finland meeting, Nov 2, 2001, Helsinki, Finland.
• Digital Libraries and the Semantic Web, presented by Eric Miller at European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, September 4-9 2001 Darmstadt, Germany
• The W3C Semantic Web Activity, presented by Eric Miller at International Semantic Web Workshop, July 30 - 31, 2001 Stanford University, California, USA
• W3C Web Services and Semantic Web presentations, OMG Software Services Grid Workshop, July 10-11, 2001, Danvers, MA USA
• W3C's Semantic Web Track and the Semantic Web Developers Day at WWW10, May 1-5 2001, Hong Kong
• Knowledge Technologies 2001, March 4-7 2001, Austin TX, USA
• Semantic Web - XML2000 by Tim Berners-Lee
• The Semantic Web, presented by Tim Berners-Lee and Ralph Swick at WWW9, May 16, 2000, Amsterdam
• Seeds of the Semantic Web, presented by Dan Connolly, at the Ala Midwinter Meeting, Jan, 2000, San Antonio TX, USA

Additional Semantic Web Talks and Presentations.

Interest and Working Groups

RDF Interest Group

The RDF Interest Group is a forum for W3C Members and non-Members to discuss innovative applications of RDF. The Interest Group also initiates discussion on potential future work items related to RDF, and the relationship of that work to other activities of W3C and to the broader social and legal context in which the Web is situated.

• RDF Interest Group mail archives
• RDF Logic mail archives
• RDF Calendaring mail archives
• Annotation and Collaboration mail archives

RDF Core Working Group

The RDF Core Working Group is chartered to consider update to the RDF Model and Syntax Recommendation, and to a few revisions to the RDF Schema specification. A further objective of this group is to respond to the Candidate Recommendation feedback and produced a revised RDF Schema document.

Web Ontology Working Group

The Web Ontology Working Group is chartered to build upon the RDF Core work a language for defining structured web based ontologies which will provide richer integration and interoperability of data among descriptive communities.

Additional support for this activity has been provided by DARPA under the DAML program.

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