The Semantic WebWilliam M Baker

Today’s Topics

• Current State Of the Web• Characteristics Of the Semantic Web– Examples – Problems – Mechanics – Interoperation

• Current State Of the Semantic Web

Current State Of the Web

• 160 million websites– 600 billion documents– 56% English– 70% in the Deep Web

• Blogs and Wikis

• More than reading

Tim Berners-Lee

• Inventor of the World Wide Web

• Director of the 3W Consortium

• Named Greatest Living Genius

• Inventor of the Semantic Web

Tim Berners-Lee

• Semantic Web Definition – A project designed to create a universal medium

for all activity on the World Wide Web

• The current web is a document web

• The web of the future will be a data web

Semantic Web Examples• Personal

• Medical

• Research

• Financial

• Managerial

Problems

• The Accural System

Problems – Language

• Language – To be successful, the semantic web must enable

globalization.• More and more, countries are fighting the idea of

English being the language of the web• Moving to a data web may mean that SQL becomes the

language of the web

Problems – Security

• Data security issues will be minimized if users accept the concept that all elements of the data web must be encrypted.

• Privacy– HIPAA Continuum of Care

The Semantic Web

The Necessities

• XML

• RDF

• OWL

The Necessities – XML

• XML Ξ eXtensible Markup Language• Rules for defining elements of documents for

storage or for use on the Internet– There are thousands of rule sets in XML, including

XBRL– Two types:• Well-formed – conforms with all XML rules• Valid – conforms to XML and additional rule sets (that

are typically semantic), thus requiring XML Schema

The Necessities – RDF

• RDF Ξ Resource Description Framework• Standardized metadata modeling set– Uses triples, in subject-predicate-object form.– For example, This presentation has the color orange.

• Presentation is the subject.• Has the color is the predicate.• Orange is the object.

• Useful for both knowledge management and the semantic web.

The Necessities – OWL

• OWL Ξ Web Ontology Language• The family of accepted knowledge

representation languages for authoring ontologies

• An ontology is a model of some set of real-world concepts.

• In short, ontologies classify nouns, describe their attributes, and outline their interrelationships.

The Necessities – OWL

• Three versions of OWL are accepted by the W3 Consortium:– Owl Lite– OWL DL (which includes all of OWL Lite)– OWL Full (which includes all of OWL DL)

• As ontologies build up, their interrelationships are controlled by mediators

Business Applications (via B2B)Web Service Modeling Ontology

• (Requester)

• Describes Needs• Searches for Services• Selects Service• Interoperates

• (Provider)

• Describes Services• Advertises Services

• Interoperates

Elements of Interoperation

• Capability– Formal description of the functionality of the

service (desired and provided)

• Choreography– Interaction style• Specifies inputs and outputs

• Orchestration– How the service uses other services

The Required Levels of Interoperability

• Communication Interoperability• All necessary data are precisely defined

• Syntactic Interoperability• Multiple software components can interact regardless

of languages, operating systems, and any/all other technological concerns

• Semantic Interoperability– Most important and most difficult to achieve• Knowledge-driven ability to overcome differences in

perceptions, assumptions, perspectives, and meanings

The Semantic Web – When?

The Semantic Web – When?

• Using rules, queries, and logic to establish the achievement of all three levels of interoperability results in proof.

• Proof, combined with encryption (and digital signatures) results in trust.

• Then, the fun begins…

The Result: E-Commerce Redefined

• Change will come very quickly• Legacy B2B Relationships– Long-term– Highly Defined– Tightly Coupled

• Modern B2B Relationships– Undefined (usually short-) term– Casual– Complex

Current State Of the Semantic Web

• Seven to nine million documents– Most common RDF• Dublin Core (1,500,000 Occurrences)

– Most Common OWL• FOAF (650,000 Occurrences)

• Resources– Semanticweb.org– “Business Tools: The Next Quantum Leap” (cover

story of Strategic Finance, January, 2010)

It’s All About Revenue

• EDI & E-Commerce

• Outsource via Allowance– Yahoo BOSS

• Ads– Blogs– Facebook