What Is the Semantic Web - Essay Example

SEMANTIC WEB] By Introduction Last three decades are marked prominently with the advent and evolution of science and technology. In 1980’s idea of bringing reformation in the world of information and technology by reviving the means of research, was the turning point in the history of web development. Machine based research tools started gaining popularity in early 80’s. Educational institutes, organizations and business world, welcome this change, and installed systems in which all the published work was stored. Various algorithms were applied to these systems to make them efficient. It may be said that these systems contained limited amount of research material. Rather than storing in cupboards, papers and books were stored in machines, which definitely improved the research strategy. It laid the basis of what we know as ‘Web’ today. With the advancement in technology, and initiation of internet, the landscape of research tools began to change. Late 1990’s is registered with some remarkable changes in the techniques of research tools (Baker & Cheung, 2007). In 2001, the introduction of ‘Web’ revolutionized the conventional ways of research. This initial Web design served as the storage of billion of documents. Researchers were allowed to access their desired content, and read it. This made Web an advance form of library. The first version of the World Wide Web, Web 1.0 facilitated the users to search ‘online library’ to the extent of reading only. The speed was fast, and the technology was new, so it got popular very quickly. The need of improvement was felt when the technology started revolutionizing, and access was limited. The updated version of web, Web 2.0, brought some drastic changes in the web research tools. It promoted human interaction with web. Now the Web did not serve the purpose of a just a library, but it became an interactive tool where people were allowed to alter the research content. The Web stuff was not a read-only material, but it also allowed users to make changes, write their own papers. It was the change that was instantly felt by the users. This laid the basis of the social networking. Literature Review What is the Semantic Web? The Semantic Web is the next generation of the Web, which attempts a precise automatic filtering of information. For this, it is necessary to make the information that resides on the Web which is understandable by the machines. With this, we can determine that the Semantic Web is about different fields, first is a set of languages and procedures to add the semantics to information that is understandable by the officials responsible for processing. And on the other hand is the development and construction of the agents responsible for processing and filtering that information which is useful for users or agents who have to perform a certain function (Breitman, Casanova, & Truszkowski, 2007). To this end, agents must retrieve and manipulate pertinent information, which requires seamless integration with the Web and take full advantage of existing infrastructure. By endowing the Web so semantics, one can obtain solutions to common problems in finding information through the use of a common infrastructure, through which you can share, process and transfer information easily. As an additional point, the Semantic Web is also the way, in which web services are implemented and interoperable reliable large scale, creating a web of interpretable and interoperable services those intelligent agents to discover, execute and compose automatically. Impact of the Semantic Web on Education In recent years, the technologies of information and communication technologies (ICT) have experienced rapid, consistent and innovative transformation process in all areas of society, especially in education. Reviewing various researches performed it is evident that ICT began to be used in classroom. Several concepts and approaches are now considered almost entirely obsolete, or are being restructured for incorporation of new strategies such as educational video. To understand this, it is necessary to have a brief historical and conceptual view about using the Internet in the educational processes. At the end of the last decades of the twentieth century, the Network began to proliferate as a place where users could have a lot of information, the tools available for communication between them is limited to email, chat and lists distribution. There are many advantages to presenting these educational tools i.e. speed, functionality and ease of distribution of information, but undoubtedly one of the great revolutions was the emergence of so-called e-Learning and training process, supported, in most cases, in a platform (Hitzler, Krötzsch, & Rudolph, 2010). In the initial stages of their appearance, most efforts were aimed at achieving maximum productivity in the technical aspects of the platform, after which some studies exhibited more focused approaches towards elements being incorporated into teaching. In short, different were the elements that characterized and could be summarized as: computer-mediated learning; connection can be separated by space and time, using different communication tools, multimedia, hypertext/hypermedia, flexible learning, supported learning tutorials, digital materials, individualized learning versus collaborative and interactive (Devedžić, 2006). In recent times, there has been what has been called Web 2.0 or Social Web, in which the technological design of the tools begins to take a back seat, and the relevance lies in the social aspects that many network applications, mostly free, offer users. The highlight of this new concept is that the Internet is perceived differently, from a static, linear and closed to one that offers the opportunity to participate, interact and be part of it, that is, users are no longer mere consumers of information and become consumers, managers and producers of information itself. A website that stands for social software is considered dynamic, free acquisition and ease of use, an alternative to a closed web, institutionalized and property, or a space-based corporate publishing service with few applications to users for publishing content (Domingue & Fensel, 2012). The new website offers free and open participation from online software that makes the user also a generator of information. This paper presents some elements that characterize and facilitate differentiation between them: Publication is simple that can be used without the need to install on your computer, or knowledge of HTML. User Environment friendly and interactive. Syndication whereby newsreaders can learn about the changes and additions made to publication. Control data the user has the ability to manage what, when and how to publish the information. Easy collaboration and participation, enabling the construction of real social networks. Without installing software on the computer. Online collaboration through available resources. New procedures to work communicate and participate in the Web. Dynamism the contents are constantly updated. Collaborative, as it is made for groups of people. Friendly and interactive environment. The new thinking involves Network which involves tools and resources available to meet the educational needs that arise in practice as teachers. The use of Learning Management Systems (LMS), especially at higher levels of education, has acquired an increasing weight in the universities, and its benefits in the teaching-learning processes have been more than proven, so their employment and study is still a general trend in educational contexts, however, in recent years the social Web has made teachers broaden the horizon to other resources, such as blogs, wikis, to name a few (Cardoso, 2007). Learning scenarios are changing, and they do it so fast hence on many occasions it has not been proven that the educational benefits of a tool when they begin to proliferate alternatives. For example, the case of personal learning environments (Personal Learning Environment, PLE), as the new spaces of communication and interaction for learning developed from the applications already mentioned Web 2.0 and through which highlights the personal and social dimensions of technological value versus the classic LMS. Not many years ago the term Semantic Web began to be known by the creator of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, whose original vision was to make it easier to share text between scientific researches and allow the reader to review the references. One of his great aims was that anyone could add information to a computer and make it accessible to all and everywhere. After understanding and making a brief reference to the term target is the significance of the new Web, that is, which endow with more meaning, allowing us as users gain greater speed and accuracy of search, because the information located therein is defined with more precision. Perhaps one of the drawbacks of the current Web is the excessive amount of information available, although access to the network and the information are increasingly easy; this selection begins for many users consider it as a problem (Bao, Ding, & McGuinness, 2012). As stated in the World Wide Web Consortium, the Semantic Web makes it possible to provide a solution, as it facilitates the delegation of tasks to the software through Web semantics, in which one is able to process its contents, reason with it, combine it, and make logical deductions solve everyday problems automatically. Impact of the Semantic Web on Networking A few months ago, Facebook introduced the Open Graph Protocol, a technology based on the semantic web which allows third party websites to interact with the social network by sending and receiving information to Facebook. This new protocol is based on the RDF, syntax and aims to "perpetuate" social interactions between the sites visited and Facebook profile of a user. This feature has been integrated by many sites like Pandora music catalog: when a Facebook member clicks the "like" an artist or a song on this site, it is added to the list of favorite music in his/her Facebook profile. Moreover it can also be considered as a further form of a recommendation. Integrating Open Graph is now reserved for websites hosting data with which it is possible to interact, including sharing its interests: "movies, sports teams, celebrities, restaurants," as stated on Facebook page dedicated to the developer. Eventually, the Open Graph protocol should allow businesses to target their ads more effectively to the "fans" that love their products, and therefore benefit from a more permanent visibility within Facebook profiles (Mika, 2007). Google bought the company management database Metaweb to improve results of its search engine. It indexes more than 11 million elements: movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and is based on a metadata system that intended to allow users to get more information directly from complex queries the Freebase data from the database, edited by Metaweb. Tools of the Semantic Web Strictly confined to HTML web pages and therefore, the concept of semantic web come in the form of micro formats. This is the existing code formatter to generate meta-data, which can then be interpreted by the browser. If the browser is already able to read the HTML tags, these do not make much sense. This problem will be faded by adding meta-data describing the nature of the content. There are several types of micro formats to describe an event, a card, a geographic location, mailing address, the opinion of a user or the content of a CV. The use of micro formats specifies the use of certain pre-defined classes within the HTML code. These can then be referenced in the style sheet for formatting choices. Thus a card in HTML will consist, org (company), street-address, picture One of the problems with micro formats then lies in the many conflicts that may appear at the style sheet. Indeed, some of these classes may have been previously used by the developer with a different formatting. The use of these will be mainly reserved for simple applications. For this reason the Semantic Web Activity Group is working on a standard for exchanging data on the web called RDF. Version proposed by the W3C RDF has the distinction of being associated with the XML but other versions are also in development (Lee, Hendler, & Lassila, 2002). An RDF graph presents Classic triplets describing these data. The triplets consist of a subject (the resource to be described), a predicate (stating that this resource has a particular property) and an object (the value of this property). Meanwhile, the Data Access Working Group of the W3C SPARQL working on a query language for manipulating RDF graphs. RDF and SPARQL are that PHP is MySQL (Stamou & Kollias, 2005). Discussion on Semantic Web The obstacles to the development of the Semantic Web are not in the lack of standards, as often happens with the technologies that try to open the gap. This is so because of the work of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), headed by legendary Tim Berners-Lee. Standards are sufficient, but to keep up with them has become a full-time job because they like them very abstract and cryptic. However, the risk of appearing other semantic technologies that deviate from the standards of the W3C, which could create a lot of confusion among developers is not resolved yet. For the expert from the University of Murcia, the big problem, however, is that to date there is a large volume appropriately structured. The entrepreneurs agree that standards already, but doubt that there will be an investment. Configure a CMS or content management system for the Semantic Web should not be more expensive, but convert sites with thousands or tens of thousands of pages can be cost prohibitive. Jeff Jaffe acknowledged during his visit to Bilbao in June that, while there is little adoption, there is no motivation to create tools, and while there are no tools, no adoption will increase. Rafael Pedraza-Jimenez, University Pompeu Fabra, also talks about the cost and technical complexity as the major inhibitors. Also said to help little that the major search engines cannot interpret that involves indexing the Semantic Web. The expert understands the disinterest of the major search engines for this technology. It makes no sense that search engines adjust their algorithms and software tracking relevant content about practically nonexistent (Berners-Lee, Hendler, & Lassila, 2002). From Yahoo!, the only search engine that has participated in this report, the authors believe vital that web designers and SEO specialists know and use the Semantic Web formats. With some resignation, that in the future will have a hybrid Web, only partially organized and partially intelligent. Everything indicates that the Semantic Web will flourish in the institutional and Administration, and not in private enterprise. Over the years, the ambitions of those who announced with great fanfare the arrival of Web 3.0 and an intelligent Internet have declined, and today are more realistic forecasts. In the coming years, the focus will be on the Linked Open Data (LOP), a W3C initiative that aims to create standards for data companies and organizations who wish to reside in format interoperable repositories and usable by third-party applications. In other words, the development of the concept of open data is the best that has given him the Semantic Web project, which had its hot time between 2000 and 2005. In fact, LOP includes over 300 projects, ranging from government agencies to media like the BBC and The New York Times. Now it only remains that its benefits extend to all Internet users (Stamou & Kollias, 2005). Reflection The Semantic Web is in its infancy, has far reached technological maturity and has also become popular. The project list referenced by the W3C is only 32 and that in a decade of development. Moreover, according to some sources, only 5% of the pages have adopted RDF language for adding semantic data (metadata) to Internet content. Some consider this fact quite optimistic. Juan Antonio Pastor Sanchez, an expert from the Faculty of Communication and Information Studies, University of Murcia and author of Semantic Web Technologies did not think it is very indicative of the development of this technology the percentage of web pages with RDF, since it is a format designed for use in conventional pages, which will continue using XHTML and HTML5. In addition, 5% may actually not be as little as it sounds, because on the Internet there is much redundant information and many details have very little interest. W3C CEO said that we are at a turning point and that people are finally learning how to use and implement these developments. However, others who are consulted are not so optimistic. References Baker, C. J., & Cheung, K.-H. (2007). Semantic Web: Revolutionizing Knowledge Discovery in the Life Sciences. New York: Springer. Bao, J., Ding, L., & McGuinness, D. L. (2012). Semantic History: Towards Modeling and Publishing Changes of Online Semantic Data. Tetherless World Constellation , 1-12. Berners-Lee, T., Hendler, J., & Lassila, O. (2002). The Semantic Web. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SPECIAL ONLINE ISSUE . Breitman, K. K., Casanova, M. A., & Truszkowski, W. (2007). Semantic Web: Concepts, Technologies and Applications. Canada: Springer. Cardoso, J. (2007). Semantic Web Services: Theory, Tools, and Applications. Idea Group Inc (IGI). Devedžić, V. (2006). Semantic Web and Education. Springer. Domingue, J., & Fensel, D. (2012). Introduction to the Semantic Web Technologies. In J. Domingue, & P. J. Hendler, Handbook of Semantic Web Technologies. Springer. Hitzler, P., Krötzsch, M., & Rudolph, S. (2010). Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies. USA: CRC Press. Mika, P. (2007). Social Networks and the Semantic Web. Springer. Stamou, G., & Kollias, S. (2005). Multimedia Content and the Semantic Web: Standards, Methods and Tools. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More