Understanding RDF: the Resource Description Framework in Context (1999)
SemWeb Fundamentals - Info Linking & Layering in Practice
1. Semantic Web fundamentals
- information linking and layering in practice
(or: what RDF might do for Drupal)
Dan Brickley,
danbri@danbri.org
(Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
2. OVERVIEW
- Where I’m coming from
- Layered & linked information
- Web History & Linking Open Data
- What’s out there now: data, apps, ecosystem
- Semantic Web standards - acronym attack:
- RDF/S, OWL, SPARQL, SKOS, RDFa
- POWDER, GRDDL, RDB2RDF...
- What’s in it for Drupal & its users?
3. RDFa?
• “I don’t know what it is, but Dries likes it”
• a set of attributes for adding typed links
and properties to document markup
• a bit like microformats, but with different
strengths & weaknesses
• a way of putting data into Web pages
5. danbri@danbri.org
• Accidental standards-nerd
• Making things in the Web since ’94
• Found metadata community & W3C
through trying to make better Web sites
• W3C staff ‘99-’05, edited RDFS, co-chaired
RDFCore work; SKOS, POWDER; FOAF...
• TV stuff at Joost & now VU University
Amsterdam, see www.NoTube.tv
19. Layers of data?
Can we also “layer” the kind of information
we find in ordinary Web pages & databases?
How do we select, compose, compare layers?
How do we figure out when two data sources
are talking about the same thing?
How can we model, create, publish, consume,
and query general-purpose layered data?
20. What links the layers?
• when we don’t have time & space indexes...
21.
22. LINKED
INFORMATION
• Good old-fashioned HTML hyperlinks
• Data files that form a Web (Linked Data)
• Two documents mentioning same thing
• Two identifiers referring to the same thing
• Typed links between things (including docs)
37. http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
“The Semantic Web isn't just about putting data on
the web. It is about making links, so that a person or
machine can explore the web of data.
With linked data, when you have some of it, you
can find other, related, data.”
“1.
Use URIs as names for things.
2.
Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names.
3.
When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards.
4.
Include links to other URIs. so that they can discover more things.”
From linked documents to databases & websites...
39. Examples
• GMail - labelling messages or conversations
• W3C POWDER - label pages or collections?
• Google Social Graph API - data linking
• Biz/ed Web site - my first webmaster job
41. RDF DATA - lots
From lifescience data and all the BBC’s TV and music
listings to FOAF profiles, agricultural research, views
of bestbuy.com for machines, and an ever growing
collection of taxonomies and thesauri.
Thesauri and taxonomies?
- formal, logical taxonomies - OWL, Web Ontology Language
- library-style thesauri, looser topical concept hierarchies - SKOS
44. Library of Congress
Subject Headings (LCSH)
“The Library of Congress Authorities and Vocabularies service enables both humans
and machines to programmatically access authority data at the Library of Congress.
This service is influenced by -- and implements -- the Linked Data movement's
approach of exposing and inter-connecting data on the Web via dereferenceable URIs.”
One XHTML/RDFa page per topic,
eg. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh95000541
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/
49. Data: In Summary...
More every day.
Increasingly cross-referenced.
All use RDF’s data model and vocabularies.
Some write RDF in RDF/XML, others XHTML/RDFa.
Varying focus, detail, quality, linkage.
Serious Library RDF data in Dublin Core and SKOS.
50.
51.
52. FOAF visualization by Tim O’Brien
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timobrien/sets/794898/
57. Yahoo’s BOSS (Build your Own Search Service):
“By combining your unique assets and ideas with
our search technology assets, BOSS is a platform
for the next generation of search innovation, serving
hundreds of millions of users across the Web.”
71. “OrganiK extends the Taxonomy XML module by adding SKOS support. Load...
This allows you to import/export taxonomies using SKOS.”
"OrganiK is a partially EU-funded Research project for the benefit of SMEs."
http://www.organik-project.eu/
see also: http://drupal.org/node/560326
76. Drupal Fields API
• Attach arbitrary properties to anything in
Drupal 7
• RDF does the same for the Web at large
• Natural to bridge these two
77. Drupal & Taxonomies
• Many existing add-ons, patches, applications
• SKOS (a W3C standard since August :) will
bring dozens of thesauri, glossaries etc.
• News sites can be pre-populated with
externally managed categories and topics
• Using standard identifiers for topics aids
aggregators
78. Drupal & Data APIs
• SPARQL is to RDF as SQL is to RDBMs
• SPARQL scripting looks very familiar to
anyone working with SQL
• Drupal code can call external SPARQL DBs
• SPARQL queries can include “GRAPH”
clauses which specify chosen data layers...
79. Drupal RDFa
• the “lowest hanging fruit”
• data need no longer be hidden in the db
• SEO (Yahoo searchmonkey, Google
Snippets), cross-linking and improved
search
• A foundation to build on
80. Acronym Recap
• RDF is a data model for linked/layered data
• “Links” are made with URIs
• “Layers” represent independent data sources
81. Creating RDF
• Types of thing (classes) and relationship
(property) are defined using RDFS and OWL
• So there is an RDFS or OWL definition for all
the terms defined by Dublin Core, FOAF etc.
• Basically a simple machine-readable dictionary
82. Sharing RDF
• RDF/XML is the oldest RDF syntax
• RDFa is new, integrates with XHTML
• GRDDL lets you map from other XML or
microformat notations
• You can also map from SQL, JSON, CSV ...
83. Querying RDF:
SPARQL
• a language for asking questions
• looks a lot like SQL, but simpler and webby
• comes with xml and json Web service API
• Working Group is working on an update
84. POWDER
• let’s you say “everything on
mp3.myserver.example.com/ is a CC-SA-
licensed MP3 music file”
• Or that “everything under w3.org/People/
is published by W3C”
• Or that everything on images.playboy.com
is an image that might not be child-suitable
85. SKOS
• Simple Knowledge Organization Systems
• An RDF-based way of encoding thesauri
• Or other things that are thesaurus-like
• Like site hierarchy, IMAP folders, tags
• bringing lots of library data into the Web
86. Summary
There’s a growing ecosystem around linked RDF data.
Drupal can expect to manage files containing it,
link to sites carrying it, and be populated with
taxonomies expressed in it.
Notes de l'éditeur
I’m going to try to do 3 things in 5 minutes:
- a brief introduction to the Friend of the Friend project;
- a tribute to the graphic design skills of TimBL,
- and tell a story about what we’re really doing in the wider Semantic Web project, about why the Web is only just getting started.
You’ll all have seen Tim’s “vague but exciting” 1989 memo. Here it is again.
The memo opens with an evocating image showing a Web of “nodes”, but there’s a hidden mystery.
But are these documents that are interlinked, or things in the real world described by documents, or ... somehow both? It shows people and groups (Tim, CERN), ... but hey, how do they get into the Web?
The Semantic Web project is an effort to unravel this mystery and pursue the original vision of a Web that better reflects our complex reality. FOAF began as an experiment to explore these issues.
You’ll all have seen Tim’s “vague but exciting” 1989 memo. Here it is again.
The memo opens with an evocating image showing a Web of “nodes”, but there’s a hidden mystery.
But are these documents that are interlinked, or things in the real world described by documents, or ... somehow both? It shows people and groups (Tim, CERN), ... but hey, how do they get into the Web?
The Semantic Web project is an effort to unravel this mystery and pursue the original vision of a Web that better reflects our complex reality. FOAF began as an experiment to explore these issues.
The World Wide Web is the most successful linked information system that has ever existed. Hidden away in the original 1989 CERN memo proposing the Web are several ideas that are only now reaching fruition via W3C's RDF technology stack. This talk will show in practice how the full 1989 vision for the Web is being realised using RDF-based technologies (RDF/RDFa, SKOS, SPARQL, FOAF, OWL), and how the two concepts of information
linking
, and information
layering
are all you really need to understand a powerful suite of tools and standards for Web-based data sharing. You'll learn how the work of librarians, open source advocates, computer scientists and open data activists find common ground in the Semantic Web project, and how the growing Web of linked open data can fit into everyday technology projects.