Discussions, References, Ideas Etc.

One person from the group sent me the following reference:

Campbell, D.G. "The Birth of the New Web: A Foucauldian Reading of the Semantic Web" Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. v.43 no.3/4 (2007) p.9-20.

Does anyone know about the concept of the 'semantic web?' It sounds interesting, but I know nothing about it.

The Semantic Web is the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee, founder/inventor of the world wide web.  He contends that at some point in time, machines will be able to "talk" to one another and carry out tasks.  Think of it this way.  Say you want to fly from Vancouver to New York for three days.  For your trip, you would have a set of requirements that you would program in the computer -- price of the flight you are willing to spend, time of the flight, where you wanted to stay, how you wanted to get from A to B once you were in NY, etc. -- then you would go to bed.  In the era of the semantic web, your computer would send out agents to apply your requirements and make all your arrangements for you.  You wake up in the morning and all the arrangements have been made and you are ready to go on your trip.  Furthermore, theoretically, the semantic web would even extend to programming your microwave and nearly any other electronic device.

How does this all work?  It is based the premise that ontologies will form the base for how computers communicate with each other.  To put it another way, computers "understand" by the hierarchical patterns of language that we program into them.  Thus, you will see a lot of literature that incorporates XHTML, XML, RDF (Resource Description Framework), and other web-based applications used to build the semantic web.

While I had one professor at IU who believed that it was only a matter of time before the Semantic Web becomes a reality, I would say that a lot more people are skeptical of it.  The reason being that ontologies are extremely hard to create and it becomes even more challenging for them to work across domains -- in other words, a computer that relies on EAD (Encoded Archival Description) is not going to necessarily understand a computer that uses METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) or even Dublin Core as its primary metadata scheme.

All this said, it is a very interesting concept and while it may not turn out as Berners-Lee envisioned, it will undoubtedly occur in smaller doses.  Of course, adding Foucault to the mix makes it even more intriguing.

DF

Some Sources:

Berners-Lee, T., Hendler, J. & Lassila, O. (2001). The Semantic Web. Scientific American (May 2001). http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00048144-10D2-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21

Cardoso, Jorge. (ed.). (2007). Semantic Web Services: Theory, Tools and Applications. (This book is available via the Database Books 24X7.)

Dumbill, Edd. (November 2000). The Semantic Web: A Primer. O'Reilly XML.com. http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/11/01/semanticweb/index.html

Semantic Web Tutorial from W3 School. http://www.w3schools.com/semweb/default.asp

As the fancy animation on the home page may confuse those, like me, who are unfamiliar with the philosopher, we should say that we are discussing Michel Foucault (1926-1984) as opposed to Léon Foucault (1819-1868).

SK

That's apparently what Umberto Eco said as well, except it was the other way around.

CN

Thanks Donald for that great description of the semantic web.  I'm interested to read the article now.