The Semantic Web:What IAs Need to Know About Web 3.0Chiara Fox

IA Summit • March 20, 2009

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Photograph by Stephen Fry

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A Quick Story

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Pete

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Interesting Bits

Sharing of Data

Smart Agents

Variety of Platforms

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What is the Semantic Web?

An extension of the current World Wide Web.

A seamless web of all the data in your life.

It is a collection of standard technologies to realize a Web of Data.

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How Do We Make It Go?

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Making the Semantic Web Go

Structure data and content

Explain relationships between concepts

Share ontologies & data

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Making the Semantic Web Go

Structure data and content

Explain relationships between concepts

Share ontologies & data

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Machine vs People

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HTML -> XHTML -> XML

HTML

Combined structure and presentation

XHTML

Allowed us to pull presentation out from the content with CSS

XML

Get data out of flat files and proprietary databases

Explicitly call out what data is

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Identify the Bits

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)

The name of a resource or thing

Use it to name everything

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the type of URI we are most familiar with

Both identifies AND locates

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Link It Up

Link data not documents.

Break down the silos that exist between data

Put it in a universal format that everyone shares

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Resource Description Framework (RDF)

It’s a language that allows machines to know what the bits of data are.

It’s an XML framework.

Used to identify things on the web

A phone number

Things not directly retrieved on the web

User preferences for info delivery

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Parts of RDF Statements

The RDF Triple

Subject

Thing the statement is about

Predicate

Property or characteristic of subject

Object

Value of the property

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What’s It Look Like?

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"

xmlns:contact="http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/pim/contact#">

<contact:Person rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/People/EM/contact#me">

<contact:fullName>Chiara Fox</contact:fullName>

<contact:mailbox rdf:resource="mailto:chiara@chiarafox.com"/>

<contact:personalTitle>Ms.</contact:personalTitle>

</contact:Person>

</rdf:RDF>

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Diagram by Chris Bizer

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Sharing Between Data Repositories

Need shared, domain specific context

How do you know this subject and that subject are the same?

Need more than just the same format.

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Making the Semantic Web Go

Structure data and content

Explain relationships between concepts

Share ontologies & data

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What’s an Ontology?

A thesaurus on steroids

Contains the map of all kinds of relationships

More than hierarchical or equivalence

Limited to a specific domain

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Typical Thesaurus Entry

PT: mobile phone

UF: cell phone, cellular phone

SN: electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication

BT: telephone

NT: iPhone clamshell non-flip style

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Typical Ontology Entry

PT: mobile phone

UF: cell phone, cellular phone

SN: electronic device used for mobile voice or data communication

BT: telephone

NT: iPhone clamshell non-flip style

Made by: phone manufacturers

Use network of: telecom service providers

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Thesaurus to Ontology

Can convert a thesaurus to an ontology

Written in OWL (Web Ontology Language)

Add needed relationships

Express relationships in RDF statements

Links data to other data

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Web Ontology Language

Expressed in Web Ontology Language (OWL)

Builds on RDF and RDF Schema

Deeper relationships in properties and classes

Designed for use by applications that need to process the content of information.

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Making the Semantic Web Go

Structure data and content

Explain relationships between concepts

Share ontologies & data

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Semantics Being Used Today

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Already Using The Semantic Web... Kinda

Mash Ups are starting to do that

Ad hoc

Different APIs, logic, structures

Social tagging

Tags add metadata to individual pieces of data

Even travel sites arrogate data from multiple sources

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Friend of a Friend

FOAF Project

Decentralized social-networking system

Ontology describing persons, their activities and their relations to other people and objects

LiveJournal & TypePad supports it

Uses RDF & OWL

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Using Semantics for Search

Google isn’t great at all kinds of searches.

Semantics are great for research searches

Dissertations, literature reviews, research

Good at disambiguation

Searches for meaning or concepts, not just facts

Can pull data from multiple data sources and compare it

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Can Ask Different Questions

Looking for drugs to treat Alzheimer’s

What proteins are involved in signal transduction and are related to pyramidal neurons?

Google: 223,000 hits, 0 results

Linked healthcare data: 32 hits, 32 results

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How Do IAs Help?

Think beyond the CV & thesaurus

What do our interfaces look like when we bring all different types of data together?

How can we use UX design for these applications?

These are the backend systems -- what are the problems they are solving?

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Learn More

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Where To Go

W3C Semantic Web Activity http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/

Semantic Web Wikihttp://semanticweb.org/wiki/Main_Page

Semantic Technologies Conferencehttp://www.semantic-conference.com/

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Book Resources

A Semantic Web Primer, 2nd Edition by Grigoris Antoniou & Frank van Harmelen

Finding the Concept, Not Just the Word: a Librarian's Guide to Ontologies and Semantics by Brandy E King & Kathy Reinold

Semantic Web for the Working Ontologistby Dean Allemang & Jim Hendler

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Thank You!

Feel free to contact me with questions & comments.

Email: chiara@adaptivepath.com

This presentation is available at: www.chiarafox.com

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September 15-18, 2009San Francisco

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May 11-14, 2009Berlin

June 15-18, 2009San Francisco

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