Semantic web
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OVERVIEW
The Semantic Web is a phrase coined by Sir Tim Berners Lee, the computer scientist credited with the invention of the World Wide Web, to express his vision of a future where machines are able to interpret data. This is to be achieved by embedding meaning into the code that describes, presents and shares information online and requires a series of standards and shared specifications to facilitate Interoperability. Once achieved it will allow users to create threads of meaningful and related data across a range of discrete sources
HTML is a mark up language which simply gives instructions to a computer as to how documents (text/images/sound files) should be presented onscreen and currently web pages need a human to read and interpret that text or image and the data within it. This is clearly illustrated by a simple search engine exercise where a search for example for "china" will retrieve items on porcelain as well as those about the country in Far East Asia. In Berners Lee's vision, machine to machine communication will include a semantic layer to refine interpretation such as the example above and enable computers to read and exchange information reliably without human intervention.
Standards and specifications
At the time of writing there are a number of specifications, supported by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) for this development which are detailed on their Semantic web pages along with articles, presentations and related groups who are working with the Semantic Web philosophy.
Related Digipedia articles
Further information
BBC Radio 4 Today programme: Interview between Edward Sturton and Tim Berners Lee about the Semantic Web
W3C Semantic Web activity
[[role::newcomer]] [[role::strategy manager]] [[role::policy maker]] [[role::project manager]] [[role::technical support]] [[goal::managing]] [[goal::digitising]] [[goal::planning]] [[level::basic]] [[level::medium]] [[level::deep]]
