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