The Semantic Web:
What IAs Need to Know
About Web 3.0
Chiara Fox
IA Summit • March 20, 2009
1

Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Photograph by Stephen Fry
2

A Quick Story
3

Pete
4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

Interesting Bits
Sharing of Data
Smart Agents
Variety of Platforms
22

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.
23

How Do We Make It Go?
24

Making the Semantic
Web Go
Structure data and content
Explain relationships between concepts
Share ontologies & data
25

Making the Semantic
Web Go
Structure data and content
Explain relationships between concepts
Share ontologies & data
26

Machine vs People
27

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
28

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
29

Link It Up
Link data not documents.
Break down the silos that exist between data
Put it in a universal format that everyone shares
30

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
31

Parts of RDF Statements
The RDF Triple
Subject
Thing the statement is about
Predicate
Property or characteristic of subject
Object
Value of the property
32

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>
33

Diagram by Chris Bizer
34

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.
35

Making the Semantic
Web Go
Structure data and content
Explain relationships between concepts
Share ontologies & data
36

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
37

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
38

Typical Ontology Entry
PT: mobile phone Made by: phone
manufacturers
UF: cell phone, cellular phone
Use network of: telecom
SN: electronic device used
service providers
for mobile voice or data
communication
BT: telephone
NT: iPhone
clamshell
non-flip style
39

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
40

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.
41

Making the Semantic
Web Go
Structure data and content
Explain relationships between concepts
Share ontologies & data
42

43

44

Semantics Being Used Today
45

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
46

47

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
48

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
49

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
50

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?
51

Learn More
52

Where To Go
W3C Semantic Web Activity
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
Semantic Web Wiki
http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Main_Page
Semantic Technologies Conference
http://www.semantic-conference.com/
53

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 Ontologist
by Dean Allemang & Jim Hendler
54

Thank You!
Feel free to contact me with questions & comments.
Email: chiara@adaptivepath.com
This presentation is available at: www.chiarafox.com
55

April 2-3, 2009 May 11-14, 2009 September 15-18, 2009
Berlin San Francisco
San Francisco
June 15-18, 2009
San Francisco http://uxweek.com/
http://adaptivepath.com/
November 2-5, 2009
events/2009/apr
Washington, D.C.
http://adaptivepath.com/
events/2009/uxi/
Use promotional code FOCF and get 15% off the registration price.
56