Semantic Web

Full course description

Most of the information available on the World Wide Web (WWW) is not directly understandable for computers. For instance, web pages are designed for human readability. Computer programs have difficulty in interpreting the information presented on web pages. The focus on human readable information introduces restrictions on what computer programs can do to support human users in tasks such as:

• finding information
• buying goods
• making travel plans

The Semantic Web should eliminate these restrictions by separating the content of what is presented on a web page from the way it is presented. In recent years, the focus has shifted to providing data, independent of webpages (for example: Linked Open Data (LOD)

Ontologies are used to provide a shared conceptualization of information. Ontologies form the basis of the Semantic Web, Knowledge Based System, Databases, etc., and they play an important role in data exchange and interoperability in many domains. Ontologies are applied in the bio-medical domains, in data mining applications, in Linked Open Data (LOD), in websites based on semantic technology, etc.

Since ontologies are intended to be shared between different systems, defining an ontology is a challenging task.

This course will focus on the standards the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is defining in order to realize the Semantic Web. The course also addresses the underlying knowledge representation formalisms of the current semantic web standards. Moreover, the course will address the engineering principle of crating an ontology. Note that the course does not address standards for making websites.

This is an optional course: Third year students choose three electives per period out of the optional courses during period 1 and 2.