Starting Out

There are a lot of good books out there on the new media, web 2.0, building web platforms, etc., but no book has challenged my thinking, and convinced me to turn in certain directions as did the "manifesto" Getting Real by the guys at 37 Signals, when it comes to the issues of simplicity, flexibility, cost and speed. I consider it a must read in this area.

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that's not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn't).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don't.

When a college ministry decides to have an online presence there are a few things to keep in mind. Some of these things are:

• student participation
• the fast changing culture of college/university life
• finicky tastes/styles
• revolving body of students and leaders
• budget
• access/control
• etc. (these are just a few)

So because of these issues and many others, ministries need to keep in mind several things before they decide to develop and build a website, or some other form of online presence. They need to be asking the question of whether or not the investment in the product (i.e. time, finances, people power, etc.) is worth the end product? Primarily because the end product of what students want will often change very quickly, and most likely from year to year. What's necessary, practical and cool to students in the Fall, may be out of date by Spring.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:28)

Now that verse wasn't written about online media, but I think there are some important principles to take away, mainly:

1. What do you want to build?
2. Have you sat down to think about what it will cost? (time, money, resources, etc.)
3. Why are you building it?
4. With what you have, can you effectively accomplish what you are wanting to set out to do?

Key Ingredients

Simplicity: What you set out to design should be simple. We live in a culture that says more is better, and so you find products with tons of bells and whistles that not only will no one ever use, but they don't even know how to use it. Students don't need an owners manual to access your online ministry and use it effectively. Keep things simple. Think of the i-Pod/i-Tunes, Facebook, Tivo, etc. Because of their simplicity they have won over the market in many ways. The best web sites are simple. When you go to that page you know how and where to navigate. Simplicity can be from an aesthetic design viewpoint, to keeping things simple with less tools, buttons, forms, coding, etc. One of my favorite church websites is Mars Hill in Michigan. Simple, clean, easy to navigate.

Flexibility: Your website or online tool must be flexible. I cannot stress this enough. You need to build something that has a strong ability to adapt and be flexible to changing trends in technology. What is cool with a website one year, can be totally out of date the next. Or, why spend tons of money on a site, that once it loses its effectiveness and everyone moves over to social networking, it no longer has the ability to adapt and meet the needs of those in the community. For example, our college ministry spent a lot of money on some websites early on in my time here, and I created things on the site that I though students would love. But when students migrated to MySpace and Facebook, our website wasn't flexible and adaptable enough to meet the demanding needs of the group. We didn't even have the capability to integrate these new tools on our site because we weren't thinking ahead. Also, when it comes to this issue, are you building a site or presence that allows others to use it effectively? Does your coding or template allow you to change the data, or does it require bringing in a designer everytime you want to tweak it....slowing everything down, limiting the access to most of the group, and driving up costs.

Cost: The best thing about the new media and web 2.0 is that you can find hundreds of online tools and platforms with little to no cost. So should you spend $3,000 on a website, when you can get the same functionality or better with an online free platform? A question then arises about good stewardship. I'm a big fan of good design and coding, so I think they are worth paying for to a degree. But at the end of the day a ministry needs to ask themselves questions regarding what they need, and is it wise to spend money on it. In my 7 years at Bel Air I have seen the evolution of cost. We started off paying a top of the line designer for a website that was out of date about a year later. We then moved to a free template and I paid a student to code it. We now find ourselves operating almost exclusively on Facebook. I'm not against paying for good tools and design....but there are alternatives. I paid for someone to code and design my blog, but I have the freedom to change it.

Speed: How fast can you change things on your site? Do you have to call up the programmer, or do you have immediate access? Can a student put in an announcement whenever they want, or do things have to go through you? When tasks are funneled through 1-2 people, speed is slowed, and information and participation among students drops off. Have you designed a site, where if you wanted to make some major overhauls, you can do that very quickly? Or are you tied to high costs, bulky tools, etc. I know that the needs of my college group this year will probably be different next year, so I need to have the speed to adapt to that.

There is a lot I can talk on, but I just want to begin there. Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1--Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2--The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3--Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 4--How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 5--Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 6--Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 7--Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 8--Opening Up Your Ministry's API

Starting Out

There are a lot of good books out there on the new media, web 2.0, building web platforms, etc., but no book has challenged my thinking, and convinced me to turn in certain directions as did the "manifesto" Getting Real by the guys at 37 Signals, when it comes to the issues of simplicity, flexibility, cost and speed. I consider it a must read in this area.

Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics, wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.

Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features, less paperwork, less of everything that's not essential (and most of what you think is essential actually isn't).

Getting Real is staying small and being agile.

Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that people are going to use. It begins with what the customer actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.

Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching, tweaking, and constantly improving which makes it a perfect approach for web-based software.

Getting Real delivers just what customers need and eliminates anything they don't.

When a college ministry decides to have an online presence there are a few things to keep in mind. Some of these things are:

• student participation
• the fast changing culture of college/university life
• finicky tastes/styles
• revolving body of students and leaders
• budget
• access/control
• etc. (these are just a few)

So because of these issues and many others, ministries need to keep in mind several things before they decide to develop and build a website, or some other form of online presence. They need to be asking the question of whether or not the investment in the product (i.e. time, finances, people power, etc.) is worth the end product? Primarily because the end product of what students want will often change very quickly, and most likely from year to year. What's necessary, practical and cool to students in the Fall, may be out of date by Spring.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? (Luke 14:28)

Now that verse wasn't written about online media, but I think there are some important principles to take away, mainly:

1. What do you want to build?
2. Have you sat down to think about what it will cost? (time, money, resources, etc.)
3. Why are you building it?
4. With what you have, can you effectively accomplish what you are wanting to set out to do?

Key Ingredients

Simplicity: What you set out to design should be simple. We live in a culture that says more is better, and so you find products with tons of bells and whistles that not only will no one ever use, but they don't even know how to use it. Students don't need an owners manual to access your online ministry and use it effectively. Keep things simple. Think of the i-Pod/i-Tunes, Facebook, Tivo, etc. Because of their simplicity they have won over the market in many ways. The best web sites are simple. When you go to that page you know how and where to navigate. Simplicity can be from an aesthetic design viewpoint, to keeping things simple with less tools, buttons, forms, coding, etc. One of my favorite church websites is Mars Hill in Michigan. Simple, clean, easy to navigate.

Flexibility: Your website or online tool must be flexible. I cannot stress this enough. You need to build something that has a strong ability to adapt and be flexible to changing trends in technology. What is cool with a website one year, can be totally out of date the next. Or, why spend tons of money on a site, that once it loses its effectiveness and everyone moves over to social networking, it no longer has the ability to adapt and meet the needs of those in the community. For example, our college ministry spent a lot of money on some websites early on in my time here, and I created things on the site that I though students would love. But when students migrated to MySpace and Facebook, our website wasn't flexible and adaptable enough to meet the demanding needs of the group. We didn't even have the capability to integrate these new tools on our site because we weren't thinking ahead. Also, when it comes to this issue, are you building a site or presence that allows others to use it effectively? Does your coding or template allow you to change the data, or does it require bringing in a designer everytime you want to tweak it....slowing everything down, limiting the access to most of the group, and driving up costs.

Cost: The best thing about the new media and web 2.0 is that you can find hundreds of online tools and platforms with little to no cost. So should you spend $3,000 on a website, when you can get the same functionality or better with an online free platform? A question then arises about good stewardship. I'm a big fan of good design and coding, so I think they are worth paying for to a degree. But at the end of the day a ministry needs to ask themselves questions regarding what they need, and is it wise to spend money on it. In my 7 years at Bel Air I have seen the evolution of cost. We started off paying a top of the line designer for a website that was out of date about a year later. We then moved to a free template and I paid a student to code it. We now find ourselves operating almost exclusively on Facebook. I'm not against paying for good tools and design....but there are alternatives. I paid for someone to code and design my blog, but I have the freedom to change it.

Speed: How fast can you change things on your site? Do you have to call up the programmer, or do you have immediate access? Can a student put in an announcement whenever they want, or do things have to go through you? When tasks are funneled through 1-2 people, speed is slowed, and information and participation among students drops off. Have you designed a site, where if you wanted to make some major overhauls, you can do that very quickly? Or are you tied to high costs, bulky tools, etc. I know that the needs of my college group this year will probably be different next year, so I need to have the speed to adapt to that.

There is a lot I can talk on, but I just want to begin there. Over the next few weeks I will post on the following:

Formulating an Online Strategy for College Ministry

• Part 1--Simplicity, Flexibility, Cost and Speed.
• Part 2--The Purpose of Your Website
• Part 3--Using Facebook Effectively
• Part 4--How Twitter Can Catalyze Your Ministry
• Part 5--Using Social Network Platforms as Your Central Hub
• Part 6--Flickr, YouTube and Other Forms of Sharing and Streaming
• Part 7--Ministry Collaboration Using Wikis
• Part 8--Opening Up Your Ministry's API

Dopo aver telefonato a mezzo mondo con Skype, diffuso video virali con YouTube e scambiato migliaia di contatti grazie a Facebook e MySpace, ci si stava abituando alla seconda vita del web. Ma ora, sebbene le possibilità da esplorare siano ancora molte, sembrerebbe che un nuovo ciclo sia destinato a spianare la strada verso una terza fase dell'innovazione.

A onor del vero, il concetto di web 2.0 non è mai stato definito in senso stretto ed è tuttora in cerca di una collocazione universale che ne riassuma una volta per tutte anche gli aspetti più controversi. Se da un lato non c'è navigatore che non sappia ricondurre al 2.0 caratteristiche essenziali come la generazione dei contenuti e la condivisione delle informazioni da parte degli utenti, è anche vero che persino autorevoli esponenti del settore contribuiscano a rendere incerto o peggio ancora, fumoso, l'attuale paradigma del web.

Nei giorni scorsi un interessante articolo apparso sulle pagine di Resourceful Idiot ha cercato di far luce sull'evoluzione di Internet, confrontando le diverse epoche attraversate dalla rete. A differenza delle prime due, quella individuata con la sigla web 3.0 si tradurrebbe in una continua e produttiva integrazione dei dati presenti in Internet.

Se la prima fase ha reso possibile la digitalizzazione dei dati e la conseguente pubblicazione di materiale testuale, musicale e video, la seconda è stata caratterizzata dalla condivisione di questo enorme quantitativo di contenuti. Secondo alcuni, ciò si sarebbe verificato attraverso due approcci: il primo e più evidente, alimentato dalla proliferazione dei più famosi social network, che come Facebook, hanno contribuito a generare community attive di utenti. Il secondo approccio riguarderebbe invece lo sviluppo e l''utilizzo di servizi web e delle loro tecnologie, come REST e SOAP.

Questi servizi hanno permesso di integrare dati tra siti diversi attraverso le API, un po' come già visto con Flickr e Amazon. Inoltre, la rinascita del web avrebbe prodotto alcuni elementi tipici del nuovo movimento, come ad esempio i feed RSS/Atom. Insomma, dopo aver archiviato un'enorme mole di materiale e averla diffusa grazie alle API e ai social network, il prossimo step potrebbe dirigersi verso la manipolazione intelligente dei contenuti. Le applicazioni del web 3.0 permetteranno di intervenire in modo originale creando qualcosa di innovativo rispetto al materiale originario. Internet come una gigantesca piattaforma?

via:punto-informatico

It didn't take long, however for today's news to arise: Facebook rejecting Google's Friend Connect. Already, concerns about privacy are arising. As great as it is from a business perspective, the idea of Open I.D. raises a lot of concerns about how my data, as a user will be used. Yeah, I love the fact that I can register and create my profile only once and allow my data to flow with me as I surf from one site to another but it begs the question of control. The reason that fragmentation exists is that the user has the option to maintain mutliple identities/personas across multiple sites. Friend lists will differ depending on the purpose of my presence on certain sites. Maybe my profile on scribd as a "health guru" does not necessarily want to integrate with my political profile on jibjab. My professional linkedin friends should have access to my blogspot and my twitter but not my facebook. The point is: only I should have control on who sees my stuff and which friends I want interacting with me wherever I go. Giving this control to Facebook, Google or MySpace, for that matter, gives up my right and my control over my data.

Facebook is already noticing the impacts of cross-pollinating users/friends from one platform to another. Privacy concerns must weigh in especially since each platform has its own policies for its users. It will be interesting how this will be architectured cross-platformed to give users full disclosure and opt-out control if they so choose.

 Web 3.0, la próxima generación de la red.

“Acho que o texto de Maria Rita Kehl, assim como o
comentário do Eugênio Bucci, em que pese o louvável esforço
em atender às questões da individualidade dos estudos da
comunicação, carece de atualização se quiser se dirigir ao
campo dos meios comunicação que estão surgindo agora. Sua
argumentação ainda está muito presa à idéia de que a única
estruturação de sentido possível depende da interpretação do

inconsciente ou dos elementos significantes de um evento ou
manifestação. Acho que a web 3 tem, certamente, o fluxo
continuo do inconsciente, como tudo na vida, mas ela tem
outra fonte de sentido e que é preponderante na sua
estruturação: a materialidade da comunicação, sua
objetividade (que, também como tudo na vida, não exclui a
sua subjetividade). Veja a força objetiva do fato terremoto
e o esforço objetivo de comunicação dos estudantes chineses.

Por que só haveria neste episódio a subjetividade e a

indústria cultural? A falida indústria cultural é também um

conceito falido, que Kehl chama predecessora da Sociedade do
Espetáculo e lhe reputa toda a responsabilidade por tudo que

se impôs até agora ao dia-a-dia das pessoas em termos de

comunicação, informação e entretenimento. Estou plenamente
de acordo, mas desde a web 2 muita água nova está passando

ao largo do lago de água estagnada dos meios de comunicação

fomentadores da sociedade de controle. É por esse mesmo
sentido que Debord proclamava, mais profeticamente do que
pretendia como ativista situacionista, que havia um modo de
dar voz a qualquer cidadão. Aqui sim, do Situacionismo à web

3, acho que temos um caminho a ser considerado e estudado
como novidade. Concordo plenamente com você Mari-Jô: o
Presente está gritando muito alto as palavras de emancipação
e autonomia para o cidadão comum em termos de comunicação,

exatamente daquilo que as grandes corporações de comunicação
morrem de medo. Sendo assim, acho que temos que buscar novos

instrumentos de análise para compreender tamanho movimento

de emancipação cultural e comunicacional. Como de hábito,
vai aparecer ainda muita gente psicanalisando o movimento
twitter, ou coisa que o valha, como se bastasse, para dar
conta de toda a realidade em questão, colocar o sujeito em

um laboratório higienizado ou em um divã distante anos luz
de discussões sobre a sociabilidade. Nada contra a

investigação sobre a individualidade, mas isso não é
suficiente e nem predominante para compreender o que
acontece nesse início de século XXI, os efeitos do encontro
de movimentos sociais e da cultura da convergência.
Portanto, para ampliarmos o alcance de nossa visão sobre o
contemporâneo e o urgente, eu gostaria de convidar os

colegas da prática e da teoria da Comunicação a trabalharmos
com instrumentos próprios e novos da nossa área.

”

Vicente Gosciola
Professor permanente do Programa de Pós-Graduação em
Comunicação Da Universidade Anhembi Morumbi. Doutor em
Comunicação pela PUC-SP. Autor do livro "Roteiro para as
novas mídias: do cinema às mídias interativas" ( 2a. ed.,
Senac, 2008 ). Publica, pesquisa e presta consultoria nas
seguintes áreas: novas mídias, novas tecnologias, cinema,
vídeo, televisão, comunicação, narrativa não-linear,
narrativa interativa, roteiro, interatividade, TV
interativa, hipermídia, tecnologia e estilo
cinematográficos, cinema brasileiro, edição não-linear
digital, novas tecnologias e sociabilidades, cultura
colaborativa, cultura da convergência, web TV, game, A.R.G.
E-mail: vgosciol@uol.com.br

por Rodrigo Queralt.

Todo está casi listo, hago eco de esta estupenda noticia!

Gracias al trabajo de toda la comunidad Mozilla, Firefox 3 al día de hoy a costado 5 betas, lo han probado más de 1.2 millones de usuarios y si no hay contratiempos podrán realizarse los test adecuados a una mayor escala, por lo tanto de no encontrarse ningún asunto crítico podría ser la fase final hacia el lanzamiento de Firefox 3, así lo expresa la organización en su tablón de noticias mozilla developer center.

Una larga lista de modificaciones incluyó la codificación JPG y nuevas opciones de compilado en Mac OS X. También nuevos gráficos y representaciones de textos basados en la plataforma Gecko 1.9, otras mejoras en sus prestaciones incluyen: mayor seguridad, personalización y facilidades de uso.

Seguridad: One click verificación de identidad, integración de antivirus y spyware, advertencia de sitios maliciosos o falsos, mejor protección contra cross-sites JSON

Facilidades de Uso: Barra de Información para facilitar la gestión de contraseñas, la gestión de descargas, zoom de página completa, asociación de podcasts y videocasts a las herramientas de reproducción media, Integración de iconos e interface widgets de windows, Mac y Linux.

Personalización: One click favoritos, organización por etiquetas, búsquedas inteligentes para favoritos, historial o páginas frecuentes, asociación de aplicaciones webmail, facilidad en las descargas según tipo de archivos y esquemas de protocolos.

Además, motor JavaScript mejorado por completo, que seguramente será valorado por el mercado móvil, en el cual mozilla se sitúa claramente a la cola, liderado por Opera, IE en WIndows mobile y Safari en iPhone.

Podemos encontrar los detalles de las pruebas de benchmark realizadas con SunSpider en el Mozilla links Blog por Percy Cabello. Firefox beta 4 es tres veces mas veloz que su predecesor Firefox 2 y el más rápido de todos los motores actuales, Opera 9.5beta, Safari 3.0.4 beta, e Internet Explorer 7.

Las apps funcionarán sin una conexión a Internet.

Tirando de la web encontré ésta otra información del año pasado, publicada por APC que removió el avispero, en la cual Michell Baker CEO de la Fundación Mozilla aseguraba que Firefox 3 incluiría aplicaciones que fueran accesibles offline –al menos durante un tiempo– y que aquellas habilidades serían las que impulsarán las plataformas hacia delante.

Si es cierto que la versión beta 5 podría ser el gran final de serie, significa que podemos preconizar que las aplicaciones offline están mas cerca que nunca de convertirse en realidad.

Reflexiones de Mike Schoepfer, ingeniero de mozilla

"Cada versión beta fue mejor que la precedente, ahora estamos en condiciones de hacer un buen papel. El trabajo se centró en optimizar el buscador para poder satisfacer las expectativas de los usuarios y la gestión de las aplicaciones -mas pesadas y complejas- de la web 2.0, como yahoo Zimbra, finalmente el resultado se tradujo en mayor velocidad".

Más detalles en Firefox 3 beta 5 release note Mozilla

Sinceramente, gracias.

]]> http://asalbaca.wordpress.com/?p=118 Wed, 14 May 2008 07:15:22 +0000 asalbaca http://asalbaca.wordpress.com/?p=118

Kemarin aku bikin postingan juga mengenai teknologi, bisa di baca di sini dan di sini Nah sekarang ni, aku kepikiran dengan pertanyaannya temenku juga, sebenarnya seberapa jauh sih teknologi yg dalam hal ini teknologi website di Indonesia ini? Apakah jauh bener tertinggal (far) atau dekat (near) atau malah mundur?

Jadi begini, di antara kalian apakah ada yg tahu tentang AJAX yg menurut saya adalah salah bukti dan cikal bakal lahirnya WEB 2.0? Pasti semuanya pada tahu kan? Karena konsep dari web 2.0 itu sendiri intinya adalah adanya interaksi antara user dengan aplikasi, dengan teknologi AJAX ini yg diadopsi oleh om Google pada tahun 2005, benar2 membuka pandangan baru bagi user maupun web developer tentang sebuah website. Yang mungkin dulunya hanya sekedar jadi papan informasi ,kemudian dengan adanya konsep web 2.0 ini, website mulai berubah menjadi sebuah media kerjasama, antara user dengan aplikasi web tersebut, jadi layaknya sebuah toko swalayanlah.

Bagaimana penerapannya di Indonesia ini? Untuk teknologi web 2.0 ini, khususnya teknologi AJAX. Di Indonesia sudah mulai banyak dan marak, contohnya aja di bengkel ini yang websitenya dibuat khusus dengan AJAX, dan canggih euy.. :D

Lalu sebenarnya bagaimana sih perkembangan konsep sebuah website itu jika kita liat di luar negeri? Barusan aja ni aku nanya2 ke om google, aku nyoba2 pake keyword web 6.0, e alah rupanya ada to? Ckckck..di tulisanku yang dulu sih emang pernah aku bahas, tetapi malah ga kepikiran apakah Indonesia ini ketinggalan ato gmn gitu. Tetapi klo aku liat2, dan klo menurutku sendiri kayanya Indonesia memang ketinggalan dengan luar negeri sana.

Oklah bagaimana dengan web 3.0 (yg sekarang mo aku kembangin untuk bisnisku :D )? Apakah kita pernah sadar apa itu? Definisi yg jelas mengenai web 3.0 ini bisa di baca di sini. Bagi yg males baca, asalbaca aja disini gpp juga kok :) .Jadi dari yg aku baca dan aku telaah (wuset) inti dari web 3.0 ini adalah dimana aplikasi2 ini dipandang sebagai sebuah satuan, atau layaknya sebuah puzzle. Pecahan2 puzzle tentunya berhubungan kan? Nah inilah konsep web 3.0, dimana teknologi sebuah website mampu menghubungkan seluruh puzzle tersebut.

Konsep web 3.0 ini sedang aku kembangin untuk core bisnisku ma temen. Makanya inti dari postingan ini juga, selain mencoba untuk memberi tahu mengenai masalah teknologi, juga minta doa restu dari kalian moga2 aja jalan and tentunya sukses, walaupun menurut nasehatnya om agus ma om ilham, apa yg aku kembangin ini adalah sesuatu yg berat sih, hiks :( ..Tetapi gpplah disitulah seninya bisnis, hehe..Jalanin dulu sukses alhamdulillah, gagal ya..jangan sampai,hehe :D

Prepariamoci ed attendiamo l'arrivo del prossimo nascituro..... il web 3.
Tutti abbiamo da dire la nostra su come sarà e su cosa ci porterà questo nuovo sistema e anch'io non sarò da meno.

Ma ripercorriamo brevemente la storia del web.

Il primo web si accontentava di pubblicare pagine web con una certa interattività e permetteva anche la pubblicazione di contenuti video e audio.

La seconda era del web invece è stata caratterizzata dai social networks basati su una nuova tecnologia che permetteva una fruizione molto più user friendly. La nuova tecnologia che ha avvicinato l'esperienza del web all'esperienza delle applicaizoni desktop è AJax.
Vorrei ance ricordare che il web 2.0 non è ancora del tutto maturo e rimangono molte incertezze perfino sulla sua definizione esatta.

Adesso come sarà la terza generazione del web?
Personalmente credo che ci troveremo di fronte ad una spinta decisiva della tecnologia. Una tecnologia che assotiglierà sempre di più la differenza tra aplicazioni on-line e applicazioni off-line. Sarà tutto trasparente per l'utente finale.

Le tecnologie allo studio per arrivare a questo traguardo sono le Google Gear API, Air di Adobe e Silverlight di Microsoft.

Queste tecnologie permetteranno di unire i benefici di applicazioni desktop con la disponibilità di contenuti onLine.

Diventerà di uso comune anche per l'utente finale mantenere le informazioni online invece che sul proprio computer. Potremo fare le stesse cose da computer differenti con sistemi operativi differenti.

La strada è lunga ma sembra che gli investimenti ci siano e Google per ora si è dimostrata grande interprete delle esigenze degli utenti.

Ci serviranno ancora gli hard disk?
Apple starà alla finestra o tirerà fuori il solito asso dalla manica?

Rimaniamo in ascolto.

In the midst of all this, I started thinking about value. I started wondering why at the last association conference I went to (about globalization) not a single participant mentioned their magazine unless I brought it up. Whereas at this conference, member communications was all anyone talked about. Digital communications rather than print, but even so.

I'm wondering whether the feeling within associations is that technology creates value whereas publishing is just a product that communicates value already created. Have associations been publishing for so long that they've forgotten that for many members the communications they receive--print or online--is the brand? If it's true that most members are what you'd call "mailbox members," those that never come to a meeting, never join a committee, never participate in any way, the magazine, the website, the e-newsletter is their only contact with the association. And if that's not creating value instead of just repackaging other association offerings, then we might as well all go home now.

Is web 3.0 really just skynet in the making? Reading this excerpt from Andrew Walmsley's column in Marketing, you might think so:

If machines could understand the information we put on the web, they could share knowledge with each other, and make conclusions and recommendations based on the information they find.

The next step is deciding to nuke the human race. He does go on to give a less scary vision of the future though:

Websites would understand that the weather forecast in Barcelona is for rain on the date on which we have just booked a flight, recommending clothes we can buy, while events in the city on those dates could be presented and selections loaded automatically into our calendar and accounting software.

Audio sushi - personalised soundtracks tailored to your taste, mood or occassion.

Naughty kecks and get your illustration on a new set of playing cards with Lascivious.

A casual luxury hotel from Hyatt in London. What's casual luxury? Swap check-in desks for a free bar, pre-loaded iPods and comedy and literary evenings. Hmmm.

Source for non-Terminator content: Toni & Guy Spring 2008 magazine.

Slide 1: Introduction to the Semantic Web International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, Singapore, 2007-08-31 Ivan Herman, W3C

Slide 2: (2) (2) > Introduction This audience knows the value of machine readable data very well… But: on the Semantic Web the terminology does not separate the concept of metadata and data − data could be metadata the way we know it − but it could be, say, my calendar on line…  one’s metadata may be somebody else’s data… Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 3: (3) (3) > Example: data(base) integration Databases are very different in structure, in content Lots of applications require managing/merging several databases − after company mergers − combination of administrative data for e-Government − biochemical, genetic, pharmaceutical research − etc. Most of these data are accessible from the Web (though not necessarily public yet) − again, some of the information may be in metadata − but some is just the data itself Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 4: (4) (4) > And the problem is real… Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 5: (5) (5) > What is needed? (Some) data should be available for machines for further processing Data should be possibly combined, merged on a Web scale Machines may also need to reason about that data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 6: (6) (6) > In what follows… We will use a simplistic example to introduce the main Semantic Web concepts We take, as an example area, data integration Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 7: (7) (7) > The rough structure of data integration 1. Map the various data onto an abstract data representation − make the data independent of its internal representation… 2. Merge the resulting representations 3. Start making queries on the whole! − queries that could not have been done on the individual data sets Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 8: (8) (8) > A simplified bookstore data (dataset “A”) ID Author Title Publisher Year ISBN 0-00-651409-X id_xyz The Glass Palace id_qpr 2000 ID Name Home page id_xyz Ghosh, Amitav http://www.amitavghosh.com/ ID Publ. Name City id_qpr Harper Collins London Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 9: (9) (9) st > 1 : export your data as a set of relations Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 10: (10) (10) > Some notes on the exporting the data Relations form a graph − the nodes refer to the “real” data or contain some literal − how the graph is represented in machine is immaterial for now Data export does not necessarily mean physical conversion of the data − relations can be generated on-the-fly at query time  via SQL “bridges”  scraping HTML pages  extracting data from Excel sheets  etc. One can export part of the data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 11: (11) (11) > Another bookshop data (dataset “F”) ID Titre Auteur Traducteur Original ISBN 2020386682 Le Palais des miroirs i_abc i_qrs ISBN 0-00-651409-X ID Nom i_abc Ghosh, Amitav i_grs Besse, Christiane Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 12: (12) (12) nd > 2 : export your second set of data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 13: (13) (13) rd > 3 : start merging your data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 14: (14) (14) rd > 3 : start merging your data (cont.) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 15: (15) (15) rd > 3 : merge identical resources Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 16: (16) (16) > Start making queries… User of data “F” can now ask queries like: − « donnes-moi le titre de l’original » − (ie: “give me the title of the original”) This information is not in the dataset “F”… …but can be retrieved by merging with dataset “A”! Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 17: (17) (17) > However, more can be achieved… We “feel” that a:author and f:auteur should be the same But an automatic merge does not know that! Let us add some extra information to the merged data: − a:author same as f:auteur − both identify a “Person” − a term that a community may have already defined:  a “Person” is uniquely identified by his/her name and, say, homepage  it can be used as a “category” for certain type of resources Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 18: (18) (18) rd > 3 revisited: use the extra knowledge Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 19: (19) (19) > Start making richer queries! User of dataset “F” can now query: − « donnes-moi la page d’accueil de l’auteur de l’original » − (ie, “give me the home page of the original’s author”) The information is not in datasets “F” or “A” … …but was made available by: − merging datasets “A” and datasets “F” − adding three simple extra statements as an extra “glue” Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 20: (20) (20) > Combine with different datasets Using, e.g., the “Person”, the dataset can be combined with other sources For example, data in Wikipedia can be extracted using dedicated tools Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 21: (21) (21) > Merge with Wikipedia data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 22: (22) (22) > Merge with Wikipedia data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 23: (23) (23) > Merge with Wikipedia data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 24: (24) (24) > Is that surprising? Maybe but, in fact, no… What happened via automatic means is done all the time, every day by the users of the Web! The difference: a bit of extra rigor (e.g., naming the relationships) is necessary so that machines could do this, too Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 25: (25) (25) > What did we do? We combined different datasets − all may be of different origin somewhere on the web − all may have different formats (mysql, excel sheet, XHTML, etc) − all may have different names for relations (e.g., multilingual) We could combine the data because some URI-s were identical (the ISBN-s in this case) We could add some simple additional information (the “glue”), also using common terminologies that a community has produced As a result, new relations could be found and retrieved Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 26: (26) (26) > It could become even more powerful We could add extra knowledge to the merged datasets − e.g., a full library or bookshop data − more geographical information − etc. This is where various “vocabularies” (ontologies, thesauri, taxonomies) etc, may come in Even more powerful queries can be asked as a result Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 27: (27) (27) > What did we do? (cont) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 28: (28) (28) > So where is the Semantic Web? The Semantic Web provides technologies to make such integration possible! Hopefully you get a full picture at the end of the tutorial But let us see some real life examples first… Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 29: (29) (29) > Integrate knowledge for Chinese Medicine Integration of a large number of relational databases (on traditional Chinese medicine) using a Semantic Layer − around 80 databases, around 200,000 records each A visual tool to map databases to the semantic layer using a specialized ontology Form based query interface for end users Courtesy of Huajun Chen, Zhejiang University, (SWEO Case Study) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 30: (30) (30) > Find the right experts at NASA Expertise locater for nearly 20,000 NASA civil servants using integration techniques over 6 or 7 geographically distributed databases, data sources, and web services… Courtesy of Kendall Clark, Clark & Parsia, LLC Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 31: (31) (31) > Help in choosing the right drug regimen Help in finding the best drug regimen for a specific case − find the best trade-off for a patient Use an ontology for medical conditions, signs, symptoms Integrate data from various sources (patients, physicians, Pharma, researchers, etc) Courtesy of Erick Von Schweber, PharmaSURVEYOR Inc., (SWEO Use Case) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 32: (32) (32) > Basic RDF Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 33: (33) (33) > RDF triples Let us begin to formalize what we did! − we “connected” the data… − but a simple connection is not enough… it should be named somehow − hence the RDF Triples: a labeled connection between two resources Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 34: (34) (34) > RDF triples (cont.) An RDF Triple (s,p,o) is such that: − “s”, “p” are URI-s, ie, resources on the Web; “o” is a URI or a literal  “s”, “p”, and “o” stand for “subject”, “predicate”, and “object”, respectively  conceptually: “p” connects, or relates the “s” and “o”  note that we use URI-s for naming: i.e., we can use http://www.example.org/original − here is the complete triple: (<http://…isbn…6682>, <http://…/original>, <http://…isbn…409X>) RDF is a general model for such triples (with machine readable formats like RDF/XML, Turtle, n3, RXR, …) … and that’s it! Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 35: (35) (35) > RDF triples (cont.) The “p” is also referred to as “property” in some cases Resources can use any URI; it can denote an element within an XML file on the Web, not only a “full” resource, e.g.: − http://www.example.org/file.xml#element(home) − http://www.example.org/file.html#home RDF triples form a directed, labeled graph (best way to think about them!) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 36: (36) (36) > A simple RDF example (in RDF/XML) <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://…/isbn/2020386682"> <f:titre xml:lang="fr">Le palais des mirroirs</f:titre> <f:original rdf:resource="http://…/isbn/000651409X"/> </rdf:Description> (Note: namespaces are used to simplify the URI-s) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 37: (37) (37) > A simple RDF example (in Turtle) <http://…/isbn/2020386682> f:titre "Le palais des mirroirs"@fr; f:original <http://…/isbn/000651409X>. Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 38: (38) (38) > URI-s play a fundamental role URI-s made the merge possible Anybody can create (meta)data on any resource on the Web − e.g., the same XHTML file could be annotated through other terms − semantics is added to existing Web resources via URI-s − URI-s make it possible to link (via properties) data with one another URI-s provide a syntax for naming and ground RDF into the Web − information can be retrieved using existing tools − this makes the “Semantic Web”, well… “Semantic Web” Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 39: (39) (39) > “Internal” nodes Consider the following statement: − “the publisher is a «thing» that has a name and an address” Until now, nodes were identified with a URI. But… …what is the URI of «thing»? Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 40: (40) (40) > One solution: create an extra URI <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://…/isbn/000651409X"> <a:publisher rdf:resource="urn:uuid:f60ffb40-307d-…"/> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description rdf:about="urn:uuid:f60ffb40-307d-…"> <a:p_name>HarpersCollins</a:p_name> <a:city>HarpersCollins</a:city> </rdf:Description> The resource will be “visible” on the Web as all other resources − care should be taken to define unique URI-s (hence the UUID in the example) Serializations may give syntactic help to define local URI-s (much like the id-s in HTML) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 41: (41) (41) > Internal identifier (blank nodes) <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://…/isbn/000651409X"> <a:publisher rdf:nodeID="A234"/> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description rdf:nodeID="A234"> <a:p_name>HarpersCollins</a:p_name> <a:city>HarpersCollins</a:city> </rdf:Description> <http://…/isbn/2020386682> a:publisher _:A234. _:A234 a:p_name "HarpersCollins". The exact syntax depends on the serialization format A234 is invisible from outside (it is not a “real” URI!); it is an internal identifier for a resource Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 42: (42) (42) > Blank nodes: the system can also do it Let the system create a “nodeID” internally (you do not really care about the name…) <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://…/isbn/000651409X"> <a:publisher> <rdf:Description> <a:p_name>HarpersCollins</a:p_name> … </rdf:Description> </a:publisher> </rdf:Description> Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 43: (43) (43) > Same in Turtle <http://…/isbn/000651409X> a:publisher [ a:p_name "HarpersCollins"; … ]. Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 44: (44) (44) > Blank nodes: some more remarks Blank nodes require attention when merging − blanks nodes with identical nodeID-s in different graphs are different − implementation must be be careful with its naming schemes when merging Many applications prefer not to use blank nodes and define new URI-s “on-the-fly” − eg, when triples are in a database You can think of blank nodes as representing an “existential” statement (“there is a resource such that…”) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 45: (45) (45) > RDF in programming practice For example, using Java+Jena (HP’s Bristol Lab): − a “Model” object is created − the RDF file is parsed and results stored in the Model − the Model offers methods to retrieve:  triples  (property,object) pairs for a specific subject  (subject,property) pairs for specific object  etc. − the rest is conventional programming… Similar tools exist in Python, PHP, etc. (see later) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 46: (46) (46) > Jena example // create a model Model model=new ModelMem(); Resource subject=model.createResource("URI_of_Subject") // 'in' refers to the input file model.read(new InputStreamReader(in)); StmtIterator iter=model.listStatements(subject,null,null); while(iter.hasNext()) { st = iter.next(); p = st.getProperty(); o = st.getObject(); do_something(p,o); } Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 47: (47) (47) > RDF schemas Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 48: (48) (48) > Need for RDF schemas This is the simple form of our “extra knowledge”: − define the terms we can use − what restrictions apply − what extra relationships are there? This is where RDF Schemas come in − officially: “RDF Vocabulary Description Language”; the term “Schema” is retained for historical reasons… Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 49: (49) (49) > Classes, resources, … Think of well known traditional ontologies or taxonomies: − use the term “novel” − “every novel is a fiction” − “«The Glass Palace» is a novel” − etc. RDFS defines resources and classes: − everything in RDF is a “resource” − “classes” are also resources, but… − …they are also a collection of possible resources (i.e., “individuals”)  “fiction”, “novel”, … Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 50: (50) (50) > Classes, resources, … (cont.) Relationships are defined among classes/resources: − “typing”: an individual belongs to a specific class (“«The Glass Palace» is a novel”)  to be more precise: “«http://.../000651409X» is a novel” − “subclassing”: all instances of one are also the instances of the other (“every novel is a fiction”) RDFS formalizes these notions in RDF Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 51: (51) (51) > Classes, resources in RDF(S) RDFS defines rdfs:Resource, rdfs:Class as nodes; rdf:type, rdfs:subClassOf as properties − (these are all special URI-s, we just use the namespace abbreviation) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 52: (52) (52) > Schema example in RDF/XML The schema part (“application’s data types”): <rdf:Description rdf:ID="Novel"> <rdf:type rdf:resource= "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Class"/> </rdf:Description> The RDF data on a specific novel (“using the type”): <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://…/isbn/000651409X"> <rdf:type rdf:resource="http://…/bookSchema.rdf#Novel"/> </rdf:Description> Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 53: (53) (53) > Further remarks on types A resource may belong to several classes − rdf:type is just a property… − “«The Glass Palace» is a novel, but «The Glass Palace» is also an «inventory item »…” • i.e., it is not like a datatype! The type information may be very important for applications − e.g., it may be used for a categorization of possible nodes − probably the most frequently used RDF predicate… • (remember the “Person” in our example?) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 54: (54) (54) > Inferred properties (<http://…/isbn/000651409X> rdf:type #Fiction) is not in the original RDF data… …but can be inferred from the RDFS rules better (“RDFS aware”) RDF environments return that triples, too Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 55: (55) (55) > Inference: let us be formal… The RDF Semantics document has a list of (44) entailment rules: − “if such and such triples are in the graph, add this and this triple” − do that recursively until the graph does not change The relevant rule for our example: If: uuu rdfs:subClassOf xxx . vvv rdf:type uuu . Then add: vvv rdf:type xxx . Whether those extra triplets are physically added to the graph or deduced when needed is an implementation issue Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 56: (56) (56) > Properties Property is a special class (rdf:Property) − properties are also resources identified by URI-s Properties’ range and domain can be specified − i.e., what type of resources can serve as object and subject − an important purpose: to license inferences  I can infer that, say, the object is of a specific type There is also a possibility for a “sub-property” − all resources bound by the “sub” are also bound by the other Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 57: (57) (57) > Properties (cont.) Properties are also resources (named via URI–s)… So properties of properties can be expressed as… RDF properties − this twists your mind a bit, but you can get used to it For example, (P rdfs:range C) means: − P is a property − C is a class instance − when using P, the “object” must be an individual in C This is an RDF statement with subject P, object C, and property rdfs:range Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 58: (58) (58) > Property specification example Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 59: (59) (59) > Property specification serialized In XML/RDF: <rdf:Property rdf:ID="title"> <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#Fiction"/> <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://...#Literal"/> </rdf:Property> In Turtle: :title rdf:type rdf:Property; rdfs:domain :Fiction; rdfs:range rdfs:Literal. Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 60: (60) (60) > Literals Literals may have a data type − floats, integers, booleans, etc, defined in XML Schemas  one can also define complex structures and restrictions via regular expressions, … − full XML fragments (Natural) language can also be specified Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 61: (61) (61) > A bit of RDFS can take you far… Remember the power of merge? We could have used, in our example: − f:auteur is a subproperty of a:author and vice versa (although we will see other ways to do that…) Of course, in some cases, more complex knowledge is necessary (see later…) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 62: (62) (62) > Simple Knowledge Organization System Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 63: (63) (63) > Simple Knowledge Organization System Goal: representing and sharing classifications, glossaries, thesauri, etc, as developed in the “Print World”. For example: − Dewey Decimal Classification, Art and Architecture Thesaurus, ACM classification of keywords and terms… − DMOZ categories (a.k.a. Open Directory Project) The system must be simple to allow for a quick port of traditional data This is where SKOS comes in: define classes, properties, where those structures can be added Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 64: (64) (64) > Example: entries in a glossary Assertion (i) Any expression which is claimed to be true. (ii) The act of claiming something to be true. Class A general concept, category or classification. Something used primarily to classify or categorize other things. Resource (i) An entity; anything in the universe. (ii) As a class name: the class of everything; the most inclusive category possible. (from the RDF Semantics Glossary) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 65: (65) (65) > Example: entries in a glossary in SKOS Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 66: (66) (66) > Example: taxonomy General - Traveling - Politics SemWeb - RDF - SKOS (from MortenF’s blog categories; note that the categorization is arbitrary!) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 67: (67) (67) > Example: taxonomy in SKOS Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 68: (68) (68) > Example: thesaurus Term Economic cooperation Used For Economic co-operation Broader terms Economic policy Narrower terms Economic integration, European economic cooperation, … Related terms Interdependence Scope Note Includes cooperative measures in banking, trade, … (from the UK Archival Thesaurus) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 69: (69) (69) > Example: thesaurus in SKOS Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 70: (70) (70) > SKOS Core overview Classes and Predicates: − Basic description (Concept, ConceptScheme, …) − Labeling (prefLabel, altLabel, …) − Documentation (definition, scopeNote, changeNote, …) − Semantic relations (broader, narrower, related) − Subject indexing (subject, isSubjectOf, …) − Grouping (Collection, OrderedCollection, …) − Subject Indicator (subjectIndicator) Some simple inference rules (a bit like the RDFS inference rules) to define some extra semantics A bit of warning: SKOS is still evolving! Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 71: (71) (71) > RDF data access, a.k.a. query (SPARQL) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 72: (72) (72) > Querying RDF graphs Remember the Jena idiom: StmtIterator iter=model.listStatements(subject,null,null); while(iter.hasNext()) { st = iter.next(); p = st.getProperty(); o = st.getObject(); do_something(p,o); In practice, more complex queries into the RDF data are necessary − something like: “give me the (a,b) pair of resources, for which there is an x such that (x parent a) and (b brother x) holds” (ie, return the uncles) − these rules may become quite complex Queries become very important for distributed RDF data! This is the goal of SPARQL (Query Language for RDF) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 73: (73) (73) > Analyze the Jena example StmtIterator iter=model.listStatements(subject,null,null); while(iter.hasNext()) { st = iter.next(); p = st.getProperty(); o = st.getObject(); do_something(p,o); The (subject,?p,?o) is a pattern for what we are looking for (with ?p and ?o as “unknowns”) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 74: (74) (74) > General: graph patterns The fundamental idea: generalize the approach to graph patterns: − the pattern contains unbound symbols − by binding the symbols (if possible), subgraphs of the RDF graph are selected − if there is such a selection, the query returns the bound resources SPARQL − is based on similar systems that already existed in some environments − is a programming language-independent query language Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 75: (75) (75) > Our Jena example in SPARQL SELECT ?p ?o WHERE {subject ?p ?o} The triples in WHERE define the graph pattern, with ?p and ?o “unbound” symbols The query returns a list of matching p,o pairs Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 76: (76) (76) > Simple SPARQL example SELECT ?isbn ?price ?currency # note: not ?x! WHERE { ?isbn a:price ?x. ?x rdf:value ?price. ?x p:currency ?currency.} Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 77: (77) (77) > Simple SPARQL example SELECT ?isbn ?price ?currency # note: not ?x! WHERE { ?isbn a:price ?x. ?x rdf:value ?price. ?x p:currency ?currency.} Returns: [[<..49X>,33,£], [<..49X>,50,€], [<..6682>,60,€], [<..6682>,78,$]] Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 78: (78) (78) > Pattern constraints SELECT ?isbn ?price ?currency # note: not ?x! WHERE { ?isbn a:price ?x. ?x rdf:value ?price. ?x p:currency ?currency. FILTER(?currency == € } Returns: [[<..409X>,50,€], [<..6682>,60,€]] Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 79: (79) (79) > Other SPARQL features Limit the number of returned results; remove duplicates, sort them, … Optional subpatterns (match if possible, return empty bindings otherwise) Specify several data sources (via URI-s) within the query (essentially, a merge!) Construct a graph combining a separate pattern and the query results, or simply ask whether a pattern matches Use datatypes and/or language tags when matching a pattern Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 80: (80) (80) > SPARQL usage in practice Locally, i.e., bound to a programming environments like Jena − less and less typical… Remotely, e.g., over the network − separate documents define the protocol and the result format  SPARQL Protocol for RDF with HTTP and SOAP bindings  SPARQL results in XML or JSON formats − big datasets often offer “SPARQL endpoints” for this protocol  In some cases one can query the local data only Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 81: (81) (81) > Get to RDF(S) data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 82: (82) (82) > RDF can be extracted/generated Use intelligent “scrapers” or “wrappers” to extract a structure (hence RDF) from a Web page… − using conventions in, e.g., class names or meta elements … and then generate RDF automatically (e.g., via an XSLT script) This is similar to what “microformats” do (without referring to RDF, though) − they may not extract RDF but use the data directly instead in Web 2.0 applications, but the application is not all that different − other applications may extract it to yield RDF (e.g., RSS1.0) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 83: (83) (83) > Formalizing the scraper approach: GRDDL GRDDL formalizes the scraper approach. For example: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/"> <head profile="http://www.w3.org/2003/g/data-view"> <title>Some Document</title> <link rel="transformation" href="http:…/dc-extract.xsl"/> <meta name="DC.Subject" content="Some subject"/> ... </head> ... <span class="date">2006-01-02</span> ... </html> yields, by running the file through dc-extract.xsl: <rdf:Description rdf:about="…"> <dc:subject>Some subject</dc:subject> <dc:date>2006-01-02</dc:date> </rdf:Description> Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 84: (84) (84) > GRDDL (cont) The user has to provide dc-extract.xsl and use its conventions (making use of the meta-s, class id-s, etc…) …but, by using the profile attribute, a client is instructed to find and run the transformation processor automatically There is a mechanism for XML in general − a transformation can also be defined on an XML schema level A “bridge” to “microformats” Recommendation planned in September 2007 Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 85: (85) (85) > Another upcoming solution: RDFa For example: <div about="http://uri.to.newsitem"> <span property="dc:date">March 23, 2004</span> <span property="dc:title">Rollers hit casino for £1.3m</span> By <span property="dc:creator foaf:name">Steve Bird</span>. See <a href="http://www.a.b.c/d.avi" rel="dcmtype:MovingImage"> also video footage</a>… </div> • yields, by running the file through an RDFa processor: <http://uri.to.newsitem> dc:date "March 23, 2004"; dc:title "Rollers hit casino for £1.3m; dc:creator "Steve Bird"; foaf:name "Steve Bird"; dcmtype:MovingImage <http://www.a.b.c/d.avi>. Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 86: (86) (86) > RDFa (cont.) RDFa extends (X)HTML a bit by: − defining general attributes to add metadata to any elements (a bit like the class in microformats, but via dedicated properties) − provides an almost complete “serialization” of RDF in XHTML It is a bit like the microformats approach but with more rigor and fully generic − makes it easy to mix different vocabularies, which is not that easy with microformats Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 87: (87) (87) > Bridge to relational databases Most of the data are stored in relational databases − “RDFying” them may be an impossible task “Bridges” are being defined: − a layer between RDF and the database − RDB tables are “mapped” to RDF graphs, possibly on the fly • in some cases the mapping is generic (columns represent properties, cells are, e.g., literals or references to other tables via blank nodes)… • … in other cases separate mapping files define the details SPARQL is becoming the tool of choice to query that data − ie, “SPARQL endpoints” are defined to query it Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 88: (88) (88) > Eg: Linking Open Data Community Project “Expose” open datasets in RDF Set RDF links among the data items for different datasets Set up SPARQL endpoints to query the data Over 2 billion triples served so far (August 2007) Courtesy of Chris Bizer and Richard Cyganiak, Free University of Berlin Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 89: (89) (89) > SPARQL as a unifying point Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 90: (90) (90) > Ontologies (OWL) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 91: (91) (91) > Ontologies RDFS is useful, but does not solve all possible requirements Complex applications may want more possibilities: − similarity and/or differences of terms (properties or classes) − construct classes, not just name them − can a program reason about some terms? E.g.:  “if «Person» resources «A» and «B» have the same «foaf:email» property, then «A» and «B» are identical” − etc. This lead to the development of OWL (Web Ontology Language) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 92: (92) (92) > Classes in OWL In RDFS, you can subclass existing classes… that’s all In OWL, you can construct classes from existing ones: − enumerate its content − through intersection, union, complement − through property restrictions Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 93: (93) (93) > OWL classes can be “enumerated” The OWL solution, where possible content is explicitly listed: Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 94: (94) (94) > Same serialized <owl:Class rdf:ID="Currency"> <owl:oneOf rdf:parseType="Collection"> <owl:Thing rdf:ID="£"/> <owl:Thing rdf:ID="€"/> <owl:Thing rdf:ID="$"/> … </owl:oneOf> </owl:Class> :£ rdf:type owl:Thing. :€ rdf:type owl:Thing. :$ rdf:type owl:Thing. :Currency rdf:type owl:Class; owl:oneOf (:€ :£ :$). The class consists of exactly of those individuals Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 95: (95) (95) > Union of classes Essentially, like a set-theoretical union: Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 96: (96) (96) > Same serialized :Novel rdf:type owl:Class. :Short_Story rdf:type owl:Class. :Poetry rdf:type owl:Class. :Literature rdf:type owlClass; owl:unionOf (:Novel :Short_Story :Poetry). Other possibilities: complementOf, intersectionOf Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 97: (97) (97) > Property restrictions (Sub)classes created by restricting the property values on that class For example, “a listed price is a price which is either in €, £, or $” means: − the value of “p:currency” when applied to the price resource must take one of those values… − …thereby define the class of “listed price” Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 98: (98) (98) > Property restrictions in OWL Restriction may be by: − value constraints (ie, further restrictions on the range)  all values must be from a class (like the price example)  some value must be from a class − cardinality constraints (ie, how many times the property is used on an instance?)  minimum cardinality  maximum cardinality  exact cardinality Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 99: (99) (99) > Somewhat more formally <owl:Class rdf:ID="Listed_Price"> <rdfs:subClassOf> <owl:Restriction> <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://…#currency"/> <owl:allValuesFrom rdf:resource="#Currency"> </owl:Restriction> </rdfs:subClassOf> </owl:Class> :Listed_Price rdf:type owl:Class; rdfs:subClassOf [ rdf:type owl:Restriction; owl:onProperty <http://…#currency>; owl:allValuesFrom :Currency. ]. “allValuesFrom” could be replaced by “someValuesFrom”, “cardinality”, “minCardinality”, or “maxCardinality” Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 100: (100) (100) > A word of warning… Cardinality restrictions are not used as syntactic restrictions to “reject” RDF data − eg, because not enough properties are set It means: “the remaining relations are out there somewhere” even if not all are known… Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 101: (101) (101) > Property characterization In OWL, one can characterize the behavior of properties (symmetric, transitive, functional, inverse functional…) OWL also separates data properties − “datatype property” means that its range are typed literals Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 102: (102) (102) > Characterization example “foaf:email” is inverse functional (i.e., two different subjects cannot have identical objects) Could be “FunctionalProperty”, “TransitiveProperty”, “SymmetricProperty” Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 103: (103) (103) > OWL: additional requirements Ontologies may be extremely large: − their management requires special care − they may consist of several modules − come from different places and must be integrated Ontologies are on the Web. That means − applications may use several, different ontologies, or… − … same ontologies but in different languages − equivalence of, and relations among terms become an issue Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 104: (104) (104) > Term equivalence For classes: − owl:equivalentClass: two classes have the same individuals − owl:disjointWith: no individuals in common For properties: − owl:equivalentProperty  remember the a:author vs. f:auteur? − owl:inverseOf: inverse relationship For individuals: − owl:sameAs: two URIs refer to the same individual (e.g., concept) − owl:differentFrom: negation of owl:sameAs Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 105: (105) (105) > Example: connecting to French Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 106: (106) (106) > Versioning, annotation Special class owl:Ontology with special properties: − owl:imports, owl:versionInfo, owl:priorVersion − owl:backwardCompatibleWith, owl:incompatibleWith − rdfs:label, rdfs:comment can also be used One instance of such class is expected in an ontology file Deprecation control: − owl:DeprecatedClass, owl:DeprecatedProperty types Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 107: (107) (107) > However: ontologies are hard! A full ontology-based application is a very complex system Hard to implement, may be heavy to run… … and not all applications may need it! Three layers of OWL are defined: Lite, DL, and Full − decreasing level of complexity and expressiveness  “Full” is the whole thing  “DL (Description Logic)” restricts Full in some respects  “Lite” restricts DL even more Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 108: (108) (108) > OWL Full No constraints on the various constructs A real superset of RDFS But: an OWL Full ontology may be undecidable! Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 109: (109) (109) > OWL Description Logic (DL) Maximal subset of OWL Full against which current research can assure that a decidable reasoning procedure is realizable (well, in current 2004…) Classes and individuals are strictly separated: a class cannot be an individual of another class No characterization of datatype properties possible … Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 110: (110) (110) > OWL Lite Provide a minimal useful subset, easily implemented All of DL’s restrictions, plus some more: − class construction can be done only through intersection or property constraints − cardinality restriction with 0 and 1 only − … Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 111: (111) (111) > Note on OWL layers OWL Layers were defined to reflect compromises: − expressibility vs. implementability Some application just need to express and interchange terms (with possible scruffiness): OWL Full is fine − they may build application-specific reasoning instead of using a general one Some applications need rigor; then OWL DL/Lite might be the good choice Future OWL versions may define further subsets that are simpler, easier to implement and still have enough functionality − referred to as “tractable fragments” Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 112: (112) (112) > Ontology development The hard work is to create the ontologies − requires a good knowledge of the area to be described − some communities have good expertise already − OWL is just a tool to formalize ontologies Large scale ontologies are often developed in a community process Ontologies should be shared and reused − can be via the simple namespace mechanisms… − …or via explicit inclusions Applications can also be developed with very small ontologies, though Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 113: (113) (113) > Ontologies examples International Country List − example for an OWL Lite ontology Large ontologies are being developed (converted from other formats or defined in OWL) − eClassOwl: eBusiness ontology for products and services, 75,000 classes and 5,500 properties − National Cancer Institute’s ontology: about 58,000 classes − Open Biomedical Ontologies Foundry: a collection of ontologies, including the Gene Ontology to describe gene and gene product attributes in any organism or protein sequence and annotation terminology and data (UniProt) − BioPAX: for biological pathway data Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 114: (114) (114) > What have we achieved? What is available? Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 115: (115) (115) > Remember the integration example? Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 116: (116) (116) > Same with what we learned Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 117: (117) (117) > Lots of tools Lots of tools are available. Are listed on W3C’s wiki: − RDF programming environment for 14+ languages, including C, C++, Python, Java, Javascript, Ruby, PHP,… (no Cobol or Ada yet…) − 13+ Triple Stores, ie, database systems to store datasets − SPARQL “endpoints” − converters to and from RDF − validators for RDF, OWL, … − etc Some of the tools are Open Source, some are not; some are very mature, some are not: it is the usual picture of software tools, nothing special any more! Anybody can start developing RDF-based applications today Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 118: (118) (118) > “Core” vocabularies There are also a number “core vocabularies” (not necessarily OWL based) − FOAF: about people and their organizations − DOAP: on the descriptions of software projects − Music Ontology: on the description of CDs, music tracks, … − SIOC: Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities − vCard in RDF − DCMI’s vocabularies: guess this one… − … Hopefully LOM, DC/RDA, etc, will enrich this list soon! One should never forget: ontologies/vocabularies must be shared and reused! Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 119: (119) (119) > Available specifications: Primers, Guides The “RDF Primer” and the “OWL Guide” give a formal introduction to RDF(S) and OWL SKOS has its separate “SKOS Core Guide” GRDDL Primer has just been published, RDFa Primer in preparation The W3C Semantic Web Activity Homepage has links to all the specifications Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 120: (120) (120) > Some books J. Davies, D. Fensel, F. van Harmelen: Towards the Semantic Web (2002) S. Powers: Practical RDF (2003) F. Baader, D. Calvanese, D. McGuinness, D. Nardi, P. Patel- Schneider: The Description Logic Handbook (2003) G. Antoniu, F. van Harmelen: Semantic Web Primer (2004) A. Gómez-Pérez, M. Fernández-López, O. Corcho: Ontological Engineering (2004) … See the separate Wiki page collecting book references Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 121: (121) (121) > Further information Dave Beckett’s Resources at Bristol University − huge list of documents, publications, tools, … Planet RDF aggregates a number of SW blogs Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 122: (122) (122) > SWBP Working Group documents Documents for ontology engineering − “Best Practice Recipes for Publishing RDF Vocabularies” − “Defining N-ary relations” − “Representing Classes as Property Values”; − “XML Schema Datatypes in RDF and OWL” − etc See the Group’s homepage for further links Work is continuing in the SW Deployment Group with new documents Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 123: (123) (123) > Deployment, more application examples Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 124: (124) (124) > The “corporate” landscape is moving Major companies offer (or will offer) Semantic Web tools or systems using Semantic Web: Adobe, Oracle, IBM, HP, Software AG, GE, Northrop Gruman, Altova, … Some of the names of active participants in W3C SW related groups: ILOG, HP, Agfa, SRI International, Fair Isaac Corp., Oracle, Boeing, IBM, Chevron, Siemens, Nokia, Merck, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Sun, Eli Lilly, … Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 125: (125) (125) > May start with small communities The needs of a deployment application area: − have serious problem or opportunity − have the intellectual interest to pick up new things − have motivation to fix the problem − its data connects to other application areas − have an influence as a showcase for others The high energy physics community played this role for the Web in the 90’s Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 126: (126) (126) > Some deployment communities The technology is picked up by specialized communities − just like the high energy physics community did for the original Web… Some examples: defense, eGovernment, energy sector, financial services, health care, oil and gas industry, life sciences … digital libraries Health care and life science sector is now very active − also at W3C, in the form of an Interest Group Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 127: (127) (127) > Data integration Very important for large application areas (life sciences, energy sector, eGovernment, financial institutions), as well as everyday applications (eg, reconciliation of calendar data) Developments are under way at various companies, institutions − not always easy to find out the details… Data integration comes to the fore as one of the SW application areas We have already seen some examples; some more are: − Pfizer, Eli Lilly, MITRE Corp., Elsevier, … − EU R&D Projects like Sculpteur and Artiste − UN FAO’s MeteoBroker, … − Semantic Digital Library projects (JeromeDL, Simile, Fedora,…) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 128: (128) (128) > Web sites, portals, local site search Portal’s internal organization makes use of semantic data, ontologies − integration with external and internal data • there is a clear overlap here with data integration applications! − better queries, often based on controlled vocabularies or ontologies… These are very close to the metadata based applications… but the underlying vocabularies (ontologies) may be much more complex Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 129: (129) (129) > Semantic portal for art collections Courtesy of Jacco van Ossenbruggen, CWI, and Guus Schreiber, VU Amsterdam Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 130: (130) (130) > Portal to Principality of Asturias’ documents Search through governmental documents A “bridge” is created between the users and the juridical jargon using SW vocabularies and tools Courtesy of Diego Berrueta and Luis Polo, CTIC, U. of Oviedo, and the Principality of Asturias, (SWEO Case Study) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 131: (131) (131) > Improved Search via Ontology: GoPubMed Improved search on top of pubmed.org − search results are ranked using the specialized ontologies − extra search terms are generated and terms are highlighted Importance of domain specific ontologies for search improvement Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 132: (132) (132) > Other examples… Vodafone’s Live Mobile Portal Sun’s White Paper and System Handbook collections Nokia’s S60 support portal Yahoo!’s food and finance portals Oracle’s virtual pressroom Opera’s community site Dow Jones’ Synaptica Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 133: (133) (133) > Other application areas come to the fore Content management Business intelligence Collaborative user interfaces Sensor-based services Linking virtual communities Grid infrastructure Multimedia data management Etc Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

Slide 134: (134) (134) > Thank you for your attention! My email: ivan@w3.org These slides are publicly available on: http://www.w3.org/2007/Talks/0831-Singapore-IH/ You can also go to my general presentations’ site: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/CorePresentations/ • where other slide sets are available (extended version of the tutorial, semantics of RDF and OWL, further application examples, etc) Ivan Herman, Introduction to the Semantic Web; DC-2007, 2007-08-31, Singapore

"Social Networking" is a web 2.0 term for online interaction. "Social Reality" is going to be a web 3.0 term for an advanced version of interaction that is focused on getting you results from your networking. You will see a lot of niche sites that focus on getting you results from your networking. You heard it hear first!

Die nun vom Stapel gelaufene Suchmaschine von Powerset erlaubt es endlich, in der englischsprachigen Wikipedia die Sinnhaftigkeit einer semantischen Suchmaschine zu testen.

día señalado para propiciar, con la ayuda de las tecnologías digitales, la participación de todos los gallegos y gallegas en una reflexión colectiva sobre las posibilidades que las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación nos acercan para la normalización de nuestra lengua, la difusión y enriquecimiento de nuestra cultura y la construcción de la sociedad del conocimiento en Galiza.

Durante diecisiete días, entre lo 1 de mayo y el 17 de mayo a red gallega está acogiendo diversas iniciativas en las que se reflexionará de modo mancomunado sobre Internet, la lengua gallega y el futuro. Iniciativas comprometidas con la lengua gallega, sabedores de que en Galiza la construcción de la Sociedad del Conocimiento precisa del gallego cómo lengua viva, de su plena normalización en el usos sociales, en la creación cultural, en las iniciativas empresariales o en las relaciones que los ciudadanos mantenemos con las administraciones.

Entre estas iniciativas se encuentra la jornada 2.0 A Nova Ágora Gallega que se celebrará en la Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Informática del Campus de Ourense de la Universidad de Vigo, y que estará dedicada a las aplicaciones de las redes sociales y en general las tecnologías de la web 2.0, que están a provocar un salto de enorme magnitud en el uso que los ciudadanos y las empresas fan de Internet. El usuario de Internet ya no es pasivo, ya no es un mero consumidor de información, si no que ahora es activo, pasó a ser un generador de contenidos, puede hacer públicas con enorme facilidad sus opiniones, habilidades, inquietudes o iniciativas delante del mundo entero o de su comunidad. Las diferentes mesas de esta jornada hablarán sobre el estado actual de esta web social y de las posibilidades que estas tecnologías abrirán en ámbitos tan diversos como el desarrollo de aplicaciones de software libre, la educación, los negocios, o la literatura..

When you're selling football jerseys it's pretty straightforward to personalise an offer based on a user profile or browsing history, but our world at work is more subtle and complex, and streamlining the online experience of a collaborative employee is a delicate undertaking.

It's no longer enough to just work with content and tags; too often that just results in users being overloaded with the corporate perspective on subjects in which they have a minor interest.

In the Web 1.0 world finding those who are interested in seeing your content was key. In the Web 2.0 world, interacting with those individuals or groups with whom you share an interest is the goal. In the next wave of networked innovation we're likely to see a much deeper and more participative experience, and that will require more selectivity in order to prevent us from being overwhelmed; however, if you are too selective, or omit the wrong information, productivity and effectiveness suffer.

In today's workplace it's not just the context of content that is important, but also the context of such things as personal and professional contacts, current projects, priorities, location, personal preferences and current access method(s).

There's a lot of discussion floating around the Internet about what Web 3.0 might mean.  Personally, I think Web 3.0 will emerge when the depth of understanding necessary to correlate more than 3 or 4 of these variables within the network is readily available, creating an amazingly accurate personalised online experience, and the usefulness of the intranet will expand rapidly from there.

Roger W. Farnsworth

PS: oggi sono di poche parole in quanto sono rimasto scioccato da eyeSnow

Mas a proposta do evento era realmente louvável e foi uma boa oportunidade pra assistir muitos filminhos interessantes produzidos em diversos cantos do globo. O conceito de unir diferentes olhares para o bem da humanidade, num movimento de aproximação de culturas, realmente é muito legal.

Agora o mais legal de tudo foi tomar conhecimento de site We Feel Fine (http://www.wefeelfine.org), cuja proposta é agrupar informações sobre o humor das pessoas na web, num verdadeiro "destrinchamento" do banco de dados que a internet é. Consiste essencialmente num sistema que puxa nos blogs em todo o mundo as ocorrências das frases "I feel"e "I am feeling" (eu sinto ou eu estou sentindo) acompanhadas de seu complemento ex.: "sad, happy, depressed" (triste, feliz, deprimido...). O resultado é o cruzamento dos dados de humor com a localização, clima e otras cositas más (como fotos) - facilmente mapeadas na web. Assim, é possível fazer o cruzamento de informações para identificar diversos aspectos como, por exemplo, o humor das pessoas na Inglaterra em um dia de sol e a foto que retrata esse sentimento. O site é bem modernete e realmente vale uma visita. Para mim, respresenta um bom exemplo precursor da chamada web 3.0, já que o site faz uso do grande banco de dados que é a rede mundial para mapear os sentimentos e humanizar a internet. Ah, detalhe: o projeto existe desde 2005, daí a minha consideração de que trata-se de precursor da onda 3.0.

Ésta cuenta con un conjunto de redes sociales donde la expresión personal es la protagonista, y de este modo se permite recopilar información y desarrollar de lleno un nuevo conocimiento.

Una de las principales características de este programa se trata de la evolución de conceptos, es decir, desde web vinculado únicamente a la lectura, al de un nuevo concepto de web vinculado a la lecto-escritura.

El programa también cuenta con numerosas herramientas (blog, wiki, fick, tags, wikipedia) que ayudan a estos procesos productivos de información. Destacando a la vez, la posibilidad de ponerse en marcha sin conocimiento técnico informático.

La "WEB 3.0" es el programa que comunmente conocemos como Inernet semántico, ya que el ordenador con el recurso de las palabras empleadas en la red dotará de significado inteligente y las interpretará para publicar la información del modo más concreto posible.

Por otro lado, en esta sciedad de la información cabe destacar la existencia de los Blogs y los Wikis empleados como útiles y novedosos recursos didácticos, ya que pueden utilizarse como una nueva forma de almacenar temarios e información, programas de las asignaturas, actividades, fichas de autoevaluación, etc. Cabe destacar que se trata de un método educativo recíproco, ya que el alumno en todo momento puede acceder a él y añadir comentarios o bien, nueva información.

Si lo enfocamos de manera colectiva, como en su día hizo nuestra profesora Aurora Fourcade, podemos emplearlo para debatir o ampliar los diferentes puntos de vista sobre un tema en concreto.

Sin embargo, todo trabajo expuesto en internet debe ser supervisado y controlado al detalle, ya que puede suscitar algún tipo de problema para la asignatura o bien, de una manera más concreta para el docente y discente.

Toda la información expuesta hasta ahora nos sirvió como resumen de la sesión anterior de una manera más desarrollada, sin embargo, llegado a este punto, cabe destacar la importancia del trato de las redes sociales, donde nos referimos a un conjunto de personas que comparten intereses e información sobre un tema determinado, y por tanto, se establece una comunicación global.

Por otra parte, nos introducimos a un nuevo concepto en el ámbito de las nuevas tecnologías que está revolucionando las técnicas de aprendizaje, nos referimos a las Web Quest. (Pincha para ver la WQ de ejemplo)

Éstas se tratan de un tipo de investigación guiada realizada generalmente con recursos de internet, lo que requiere un trabajo constante y controlado, como ya hemos destacado con anterioridad. Con ellas se pretende conseguir unos objetivos, una estructura de la actividad, una tarea y  unos fines concretos que serán evaluados al finalizar la WQ.

Por tanto, su estructura se organiza según: introducción, tarea, proceso, recursos, evaluación, conclusión y autores. Son tratadas como unidades didácticas virtuales, ya que poseen los mismos apartados y objetivos a realizar.

Se trata de una manera muy positiva para qué los niños trbajen directamente en internet sin exponerse a ningún tipo de riesgo, ya que en la WQ están presentes todas las instrucciones pertinentes.

Según la duración de las WQ podemos distinguir dos tipos: 

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