Semantic Web - W3C

W3C’s RDF Validation Workshop – Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data

2013-05-22T15:34:57+00:00

W3C announced today a RDF Validation Workshop – Practical Assurances for Quality RDF Data, 10-11 September 2013, in Cambridge, USA. The Semantic Web has demonstrated considerable value for collaborative contributions to data. Adoption in many mission-critical environments requires data to conform to specified patterns. Validation in a banking context shares many requirements with quality assurance of linked clinical data. Systems like Linked Open Data, which don’t have formal interface specifications, share these validation needs. Most data representation languages used in conventional settings offer some sort of input validation, ranging from parsing grammars for domain-specific languages to XML Schema or RelaxNG for XML structures. While the distributed nature of RDF affects the notions of “validity”, tool chains need to be established to ensure data integrity. The goal of this workshop is to discuss use cases for data validation on the Semantic Web with development of technologies to enable those use cases. W3C membership is not required to participate. The event is open to all. All participants are required to submit a position paper by 30 June 2013.

Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 Second Last Call Working Draft

2013-05-21T15:58:40+00:00

The MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group has published a second Last Call working draft of Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0.

The draft implements all changes since the previous publication of 11 April 2013. There are no remaining open issues. The Working Group is planning to finalize ITS 2.0 now: this is your last time to provide feedback! The Last Call period ends 11 June.

ITS 2.0 provides metadata to foster the adoption of the multilingual Web.

JSON-LD Algorithms and API 1.0: 2nd Last Call

2013-05-16T15:38:09+00:00

The JSON-LD Community Group and the RDF Working Group have announced the 2nd Last Call publication of the JSON-LD 1.0: Algorithms and API specification.

JSON-LD harmonizes the representation of Linked Data in JSON by describing a common JSON representation format for expressing directed graphs; mixing both Linked Data and non-Linked Data in a single document. The format has already been adopted by large companies such as Google in their Gmail product and is available to over 425 million customers around the world.

The syntax is designed to not disturb already deployed systems running on JSON, but provide a smooth upgrade path from JSON to JSON-LD. It is primarily intended to be a way to use Linked Data in Web-based programming environments, to build interoperable Linked Data Web services, and to store Linked Data in JSON-based storage engines. The JSON-LD 1.0 Algorithms and API specification describes useful Algorithms for working with JSON-LD data. It also specifies an Application Programming Interface that can be used to transform JSON-LD documents in order to make them easier to work with in programming environments like JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.

This is a 2nd Last Call publication for the JSON-LD 1.0 Algorithms and API specification. Changes since the previous publication include a shift to use a Future’s based API design approach, better base URL processing, and better translation of data from RDF.
All substantive technical work on the specification is complete. Feedback on both specifications is encouraged and should be sent to public-rdf-comments@w3.org. The 2nd Last Call period will end in 3 weeks, on June 06th 2013.

If you would like to learn more about JSON-LD, there is a helpful introductory video on the topic as well as the json-ld.org website.

Rome MultilingualWeb workshop report now available

2013-05-14T12:52:17+00:00

A report summarizing the MultilingualWeb workshop in Rome is now available from the MultilingualWeb site. It contains a summary of each session with links to presentation slides and more detailed scribing done on site in Rome. Links to video for each session will be posted soon.

With approximately 150 attendees, the Rome Workshop focused on the theme “Making the Multilingual Web Work” and emphasized information about the best practices and standards that help content creators and localizers ensure that the World-Wide Web lives up to its name, across boundaries of language and culture. Attendees heard from a variety of perspectives, with fruitful dialogue between various stakeholder groups involved in trying to expand the multilingual scope of the Web.

Taking place over two days (12 and 13 March, 2013) at the headquarters of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Workshop featured twenty-four conference-style presentations, seven poster presentations, and an “open space” discussion that featured six breakout sessions focusing on key topics that emerged during the Workshop. In addition, it showcased technology implementations of the forthcoming internationalization Tag Set (ITS) 2.0 standard.

The Workshop was sponsored by the EU-funded QTLaunchPad project and Verisign. It was run by the MultilingualWeb-LT Working Group.

New vCard in RDF Ontology draft

2013-05-02T14:53:47+00:00

The Semantic Web Interest Group has published a new draft for the vCard-in-RDF Ontology, edited by Renato Iannella and James McKinney. The new draft updates the previous version by aligning it with the latest IETF vCard specification, ie, RFC6350.

This is a draft; If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to semantic-web@w3.org (subscribe, archives). The goal is to publish an Interest Group Note once there is a consensus in the community.

The The PROV Family of Documents are W3C Recommendations

2013-04-30T14:26:09+00:00

The W3C Provenance Working Group was chartered to develop a framework for interchanging provenance on the Web. The Working Group has now published the PROV Family of Documents as W3C Recommendations, along with corresponding supporting notes. You can find a complete list of the documents in the PROV Overview Note. PROV enables one to represent and interchange provenance information using widely available formats such as RDF and XML. In addition, it provides definitions for accessing provenance information, validating it, and mapping to Dublin Core.

German Translation of RDFa 1.1 Core

2013-04-24T09:01:12+00:00

Stefan Schumacher published a German translation of the “RDFa 1.1 Core”, under the title “RDFa 1.1 Core”.

Japanese Translation of SPARQL 1.1 Overview Published

2013-04-23T05:55:36+00:00

上綱秀治 (Shuji Kamitsuna) published a Japanese translation of the “SPARQL 1.1 Overview”, under the title “SPARQL 1.1概要”.

4 new articles about working with HTML markup in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts

2013-04-22T16:47:05+00:00

Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts
This tutorial has been modified to bring it in line with the current tutorial format. Rather than contain duplicate content, it now introduces the novice to key concepts and points off to useful further reading in an organized fashion. It has been completely rewritten.

Text direction and structural markup in HTML
This article has been created from material formerly in the tutorial “Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts” and augmented with information about new HTML5 markup constructs that are beginning to see adoption. It should be regarded as a new article, focusing on applying bidi markup to document- and block-level content, including forms.

What you need to know about the bidi algorithm and inline markup
This is an update of an existing article, but it has been almost completely rewritten. The most significant changes are the new parts describing how to apply the new HTML5 constructs which are beginning to see adoption. Additional changes will be needed as HTML5 bidi markup is finalised over the coming months. The article also proposes a simpler way to approach markup of bidi text, particularly useful for those with less experience, that relies less on a deep understanding of the issues involved.

Visual vs. logical ordering of text
This is a new article created from material that has been removed from the previously mentioned articles. It was removed into a separate article because visual ordering is much less important these days, and to avoid duplication. Only a few changes have been made to the content itself.

Best Practices for Multilingual Linked Open Data Community Group formed

2013-04-15T12:28:04+00:00

During a breakout session held at the MultilingualWeb Workshop in Rome it was decided to form a W3C Community Group to push forward the concept of Best Practices for Multilingual Linked Open Data. This group has now been formed and there are already 24 participants. See the group home page.

The group plans to crowd-source ideas from the community regarding best practices for producing multilingual linked open data. Key topics for discussion are naming, labeling, interlinking, and quality of multilingual linked data, but there may be others. Use cases will be identified to motivate discussions. Participation both from academia and industry is expected. The main outcome of the group will be the documentation of patterns and best practices for the creation, linking, and use of multilingual linked data.

You can join the group with either a full W3C member account or by getting a W3C Public Account. Over the coming weeks Felix Sasaki, Jose E. Gayo and Jorge Gracia will work on a roadmap, publication plan and strategy for the group. Any queries can be directed to Dominic Jones.