W3C announces the new RDB2RDF Working Group, whose mission is to standardize a language for mapping relational data and relational database schemas into RDF and OWL, tentatively called the RDB2RDF Mapping Language, R2RML. From the beginning of the deployment of the Semantic Web there has been increasing interest in mapping relational data to the Semantic Web. This is to allow relational data to be combined with other data on the Web, to link semantics directly to relational data and to aid in enterprise data integration. The creation of this Working Group follows the work of a previous W3C Incubator Group in this area. Read the RDB2RDF Working Group Charter
About Ivan Herman
Ivan Herman is the Semantic Web Activity Lead at W3C. He graduated as a mathematician at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Hungary, in 1979. After a brief scholarship at the Université Paris VI he joined the Hungarian research institute in computer science (SZTAKI) where he worked for 6 years. He left Hungary in 1986 and, after a few years in industry, he joined the Centre for Mathematics and Computer Sciences (CWI) in Amsterdam where he has held a tenure position since 1988. He received a PhD degree in Computer Science in 1990 at the Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Ivan joined the W3C team as Head of Offices in January 2001 while maintaining his position at CWI. He served as Head of Offices until June 2006, when he was asked to take the Semantic Web Activity Lead position.
