or how I learned to stop worrying and love metadata… Richard Ashby, communications team July 2008 [email_address] www.leeds.ac.uk/comms The semantic web

The semantic web “ I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.” Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web 1999 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web

The semantic web Mostly flat information Some databases but content very functional Little engagement or interactivity

The semantic web Greater interactivity Growth of social media / social networking Online communities created / social capital

The semantic web Joining up of information Data portability Browsers and search engines become more ‘ intelligent’

The semantic web Works but is clunky, not that efficient, technically limited

The semantic web Smoother experience, looks better, still lacks cohesion

The semantic web Greater scope for exploration, limitless potential, smart

The semantic web

The semantic web OK, so we’ve seen how the web is evolving. Let’s get into semantics. Firstly, we’ll look at the traditional web model…

The semantic web Let’s introduce Professor Gibson. With the traditional web model she has the following…

The semantic web A faculty page

The semantic web A faculty page A research page

The semantic web A faculty page A research page A blog

The semantic web A faculty page A research page A blog and a staff listing page

The semantic web The content of these sites is fine but there are no linkages between the data. So visitors find it difficult to get all the information they need quickly and easily.

The semantic web That’s where the Semantic web comes in…

The semantic web Using code we can create relationships between websites, people and events… These can then be understood by the browser and interpreted in a helpful way.

The semantic web So we can link Professor Gibson’s faculty page to her research.

The semantic web So we can link Professor Gibson’s faculty page to her research. Then link data in her blog to both of these.

The semantic web So we can link Professor Gibson’s faculty page to her research. Then link data in her blog to both of these. And link profile data to her staff listing.

The semantic web And her staff listing could show some of the other academics she works with.

The semantic web And her staff listing could show some of the other academics she works with. With her research page showing her links with worldwide research collaborators.

The semantic web Who also know one of her colleagues.

The semantic web Who also know one of her colleagues. Who comment on Professor Gibson’s blog regularly.

The semantic web With all this data being able to be displayed simply it provides a much richer user experience and offers information that previously might not have been exposed.

The semantic web Well that’s exciting stuff. But how do we go about getting onboard with semantics? Glad you asked. There are a few different ways we’ll look at in more detail now…

The semantic web Firstly we could create Our documents using RDF: Resource Description Framework

The semantic web Here special meta-data code is added to pages that describe the relationships between that data. These are called triples.

The semantic web RDF is very powerful but up to now hasn’t been widely deployed as it can be a very complex process to create the relationships and browser support has been limited.

The semantic web Having said this, better tools now exist to create RDF documents which we will explore in the next section.

The semantic web An easier way of getting involved is to use Microformats. These are simple pieces of code that allow the browser to interpret the data intelligently.

The semantic web Here’s a couple of real world examples from some of our pages…

The semantic web On the communications team website the address Has been coded as a microformat.

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat.

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat. This allows the visitor to automatically add the contact details to Outlook.

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat. This allows the visitor to automatically add the contact details to Outlook.

The semantic web Now let’s take a look at the HR contacts page. Again we’ve used the address microformat.

The semantic web Now let’s take a look at the HR contacts page. Again we’ve used the address microformat. This allows visitors to get a Google map of the location with a single click.

The semantic web Now let’s take a look at the HR contacts page. Again we’ve used the address microformat. This allows visitors to get a Google map of the location with a single click.

The semantic web That’s all for now. More coming soon on the comms website: www.leeds.ac.uk/comms/ Thanks for listening…