The goal of the Semantic Web initiative is as broad as that of the Web: to create a universal medium for the exchange of data. It is envisaged to smoothly interconnect personal information management, enterprise application integration, and the global sharing of commercial, scientific and cultural data. Facilities to put machine-understandable data on the Web are quickly becoming a high priority for many organizations, individuals and communities.
The Web can reach its full potential only if it becomes a place where data can be shared and processed by automated tools as well as by people. For the Web to scale, tomorrow's programs must be able to share and process data even when these programs have been designed totally independently. The Semantic Web Activity is an initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) designed to provide a leadership role in defining this Web. The Activity develops open specifications for those technologies that are ready for large scale deployment, and identifies, through open source advanced development, the infrastructure components that will be necessary to scale in the Web in the future.
The principal technologies of the Semantic Web fit into a set of layered specifications. The current components are the Resource Description Framework (RDF) Core Model, the RDF Schema language and the Web Ontology language (OWL). Building on these core components is a standardized query language, SPARQL (pronounced "sparkle"), for RDF enabling the 'joining' of decentralized collections of RDF data. The GRDDL and RDFa Recommendations aim at creating bridges between the RDF model and various XML formats, like XHTML. The POWDER Working group develops technologies to find resource descriptions for specific resources on the Web; descriptions which can be ‘joined’ to other RDF data. Finally, SKOS is a model and an RDF vocabulary for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, 'folksonomies', other types of controlled vocabulary, and also concept schemes embedded in glossaries and terminologies.
The OWL Working Group is working on a new version of an OWL W3C Recommendation that refines and extends the 2004 version of OWL. The group had a face-to-face during the Technical Plenary week in Mandelieu, France and another one in February, in Cambridge, MA, USA. The group has published a number of documents as Last Call Working Drafts plus and a number of new documents in December. Last Call comments came in by the deadline in January 2009, and the group is busy handling those. A new round of publication is planned at the beginning of April.
The Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group is continuing its work to develop a mechanism through which structured metadata (“Description Resources”) can be authenticated and applied to groups of Web resources. The group published a series of 2nd Last Call Working Drafts plus the first draft of a Primer in November. The last call comments have been mostly handled. The charter of the group has been extended until 20th of March, which will allow the group to finish the work and publish a Recommendation.
The Rule Interchange Format (RIF) Working Group held its 12th face-to-face meeting in Portland, Oregon, in January. New releases of documents have been published in December. Most of these included minor changes only, but major advances were done in the design of the RIF Core Dialect and the RIF Production Rule Dialect. At present, there are also discussions between the OWL and the RIF working groups to align some of the design choices in the two languages.
The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group concentrates its activity on SKOS, and is close to issue a Candidate Recommendation, followed by a Proposed Recommendation. The charter of the group has been extended until April 30 to finish the work on this Recommendation (note that, on request of the I18N group, issuing a Candidate Recommendation was delayed for a few weeks, to ensure a proper review).
The Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group (HCLSIG) had its first F2F meeting during the Technical Plenary Week in Mandelieu, France, in October. It is now organized in 6 task forces to follow their work. The IG has recently given a series of tutorials at the C-SHALS conference in February 2009, outlining the activity of each of those task forces.
The DAWG Working Group has been rechartered, after a successful review, in February. The group’s name has been changed to SPARQL Working Group, reflecting the fact that the group's focus is to work on an update of the SPARQL Recommendation. The group is currently in its early formation phase.
The GRDDL Working Group has published the GRDDL Recommendation on 11 September 2007 has been officially closed in December 2008.
W3C Organized a Workshop on Semantic Web in the Oil & Gas industry in December 2008, in Houston, Texas. A report was published right before the Christmas vacations. The goal of the Workshop was the explore the possibility of starting a new “vertical”, similarly to the HCLS work, in a huge industrial area. At the moment discussions are ongoing with various organizations to see if the necessary staffing issues, in the form of a W3C fellow, could be secured. This is a prerequisite to follow this activity, due to the current staffing situation at W3C.
Another possible “vertical”, explored by the Activity, is on Financial services, more specifically around XBRL. As announced to the AC in January, work is ongoing to explore whether an Interest Group in the area would be feasible. This line of work was made possible by the fact that JustSystems offered W3C a fellow, in the person of Dave Raggett.
The Activity plans the publication of a number of documents before the next Advisory Committee meeting in November 2009. These include the Powder and SKOS Recommendatations, due to be finalized before summer. There are good prospects to see both OWL 2 and RIF reach at least Candidate Recommendation phase. Finally, the new SPARQL Working Group should have its first Working Drafts published. The HCLS Interest Group plans a number of publications in various scientific journals, conferences, make demonstrations on the way the technology can be used, and publish W3C Notes to document their experiences.
There are also ongoing discussions with the participants of the RDB2RDF Incubator group that may lead to the proposal for a new Working Group, concentrating on the mapping of relational databases structures to RDF/OWL.
| Group | Chair | Team Contact | Charter |
|---|---|---|---|
| OWL Working Group (participants) | Ian Horrocks, Alan Ruttenberg | Ivan Herman, Sandro Hawke | Chartered until 1 July 2009 |
| Protocol for Web Description Resources (POWDER) Working Group (participants) | Phil Archer | Matt Womer | Chartered until 30 June 2009 |
| SPARQL Working Group (participants) | Lee Feigenbaum, Axel Polleres | Ivan Herman, Eric Prud'hommeaux | Chartered until 30 July 2009 |
| Rule Interchange Format Working Group (participants) | Christian de Sainte Marie, Christopher Welty | Sandro Hawke | Chartered until 30 November 2009 |
| Semantic Web Coordination Group (participants) | Ivan Herman | Ivan Herman | Chartered until 31 May 2011 |
| Semantic Web Deployment Working Group (participants) | Thomas Baker, Guus Schreiber | Ralph Swick | Chartered until 30 June 2009 |
| Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group | Susie Stephens, M. Scott Marshall | Eric Prud'hommeaux | Chartered until 30 May 2011 |
| Semantic Web Interest Group | Dan Brickley | Ivan Herman | Chartered until 31 May 2011 |
This Activity Statement was prepared for the October 2008 W3C Advisory Committee Meeting (Members only) per section 5 of the W3C Process Document. Generated from group data.
Ivan Herman, Semantic Web Activity Lead$Id: Activity.html,v 1.264 2009/06/03 12:16:12 sysbot Exp $