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Semantic Web and Resource Description Framework
Need defined
HTML can only say that the span of text "ID586172" is something that should be positioned near "Acme Gizmo" and "$199", etc. There is no way to say "this is a catalog" or even to establish that "Acme Gizmo" is a kind of title or that "$199" is a price. There is also no way to express that these pieces of information are bound together in describing a discrete item, distinct from other items perhaps listed on the page.
Semantic Web
The semantic web comprises the standards and tools of XML, XML Schema, RDF, RDF Schema and OWL that are organized in the Semantic Web Stack. The OWL Web Ontology Language Overview describes the function and relationship of each of these components of the semantic web:
- XML provides an elemental syntax for content structure within documents, yet associates no semantics with the meaning of the content contained within.
- XML Schema is a language for providing and restricting the structure and content of elements contained within XML documents.
- RDF is a simple language for expressing data models, which refer to objects ("resources") and their relationships. An RDF-based model can be represented in XML syntax.
RDF can be defined in three simple rules:
- A fact is expressed as a triple of the form (Subject, Predicate, Object). It's like a little English sentence.
- Subjects, predicates, and objects are names for entities, whether concrete or abstract, in the real world. Names are either 1) global and refer to the same entity in any RDF document in which they appear, or 2) local, and the entity it refers to cannot be directly refered to outside of the RDF document.
- Objects can also be text values, called literal values.
You've seen facts already. Each line below was a fact:
:john :a :Person .
:john :hasMother :susan .
- RDF Schema extends RDF and is a vocabulary for describing properties and classes of RDF-based resources, with semantics for generalized-hierarchies of such properties and classes.
- OWL adds more vocabulary for describing properties and classes: among others, relations between classes (e.g. disjointness), cardinality (e.g. "exactly one"), equality, richer typing of properties, characteristics of properties (e.g. symmetry), and enumerated classes.
- SPARQL is a protocol and query language for semantic web data sources.
Current ongoing standardizations include:
- Rule Interchange Format (RIF) as the Rule Layer of the Semantic Web Stack