The semantic web or how I learned to stop worrying and love metadata… Richard Ashby, communications team 5 August 2008

The semantic web “I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.” Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web 1999 Source:

The semantic web Mostly flat information Some databases but content very functional Little engagement or interactivity

The semantic web Greater interactivity Growth of social media / social networking Online communities created / social capital

The semantic web Joining up of information Data portability Browsers and search engines become more ‘intelligent’

The semantic web Works but is clunky, not that efficient, technically limited

The semantic web Smoother experience, looks better, still lacks cohesion

The semantic web Greater scope for exploration, limitless potential, smart

The semantic web

OK, so we’ve seen how the web is evolving. Let’s get into semantics. Firstly, we’ll look at the traditional web model…

The semantic web Let’s introduce Professor Gibson. With the traditional web model she has the following…

The semantic web A faculty page

The semantic web A faculty page A research page

The semantic web A faculty page A research page A blog

The semantic web A faculty page A research page A blog and a staff listing page

The semantic web The content of these sites is fine but there are no linkages between the data. So visitors find it difficult to get all the information they need quickly and easily.

The semantic web That’s where the Semantic web comes in…

The semantic web Using code we can create relationships between websites, people and events… These can then be understood by the browser and interpreted in a helpful way.

The semantic web So we can link Professor Gibson’s faculty page to her research.

The semantic web So we can link Professor Gibson’s faculty page to her research. Then link data in her blog to both of these.

The semantic web So we can link Professor Gibson’s faculty page to her research. Then link data in her blog to both of these. And link profile data to her staff listing.

The semantic web And her staff listing could show some of the other academics she works with.

The semantic web And her staff listing could show some of the other academics she works with. With her research page showing her links with worldwide research collaborators.

The semantic web Who also know one of her colleagues.

The semantic web Who also know one of her colleagues. Who comment on Professor Gibson’s blog regularly.

The semantic web With all this data being able to be displayed simply it provides a much richer user experience and offers information that previously might not have been exposed.

The semantic web Well that’s exciting stuff. But how do we go about getting onboard with semantics? Glad you asked. There are a few different ways we’ll look at in more detail now…

The semantic web Firstly we could create Our documents using RDF: Resource Description Framework

The semantic web Here special meta-data code is added to pages that describe the relationships between that data. These are called triples.

The semantic web RDF is very powerful but up to now hasn’t been widely deployed as it can be a very complex process to create the relationships and browser support has been limited.

The semantic web Having said this, better tools now exist to create RDF documents which we will explore in the next section.

The semantic web An easier way of getting involved is to use Microformats. These are simple pieces of code that allow the browser to interpret the data intelligently.

The semantic web Here’s a couple of real world examples from some of our pages…

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat.

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat.

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat. This allows the visitor to automatically add the contact details to Outlook.

The semantic web On the communications team website the address has been coded as a microformat. This allows the visitor to automatically add the contact details to Outlook.

The semantic web Now let’s take a look at the HR contacts page. Again we’ve used the address microformat.

The semantic web Now let’s take a look at the HR contacts page. Again we’ve used the address microformat. This allows visitors to get a Google map of the location with a single click.

The semantic web Now let’s take a look at the HR contacts page. Again we’ve used the address microformat. This allows visitors to get a Google map of the location with a single click.

The semantic web Let’s now take a look at some of the options available to us if we want to take things forward…

The semantic web

Jadu is the CMS we are using for the corporate web project.

The semantic web Jadu is the CMS we are using for the corporate web project. It already provides rich metadata functionality when building pages.

The semantic web They have made it clear that semantic web tools are part of their product road map and are in the pipeline. We have discussed this with CEO Suraj Kika previously.

The semantic web He also states on the Jadu website: "For information on the Internet to make sense to people and to machines – its necessary to adopt standards as and when they change"

The semantic web Benefits of using Jadu We already have the system running. Training costs are greatly reduced. Jadu works well with our Google search engine.

The semantic web Benefits of using Jadu All the code created is accessible and fully standards compliant.

The semantic web Drawbacks of using Jadu We may need some functionality that doesn’t yet exist and needs to be developed.

The semantic web Endeca offer enterprise solutions providing semantic web functionality, and features such as guided searches. Their client list includes Tesco and The Guardian.

The semantic web Benefits of using Endeca Powerful range of features. Robust server architecture makes it very reliable. Guided search may be helpful in some instances.

The semantic web Drawbacks of using Endeca Very high costs to deploy. Additional platform to support technically. Potential conflict with Google search engine.

The semantic web Drawbacks of using Endeca Creates additional complexity in page builds so more to go wrong and timescales affected.

The semantic web Open Calais is a project funded by Reuters to help improve the quality of web metadata. A key element of this is a set of powerful tools for creating RDF documents and semantic applications.

The semantic web Benefits of using Open Calais Completely free service with great functionality. Active development community. Platform agnostic.

The semantic web Benefits of using Open Calais Could probably be made to work with Jadu and other sites fairly easily.

The semantic web Drawbacks of using Open Calais No guarantees the service will always be free.

The semantic web We’ve already looked at microformats but let’s now see the pros and cons of using them.

The semantic web Benefits of using microformats Very simple to add to pages. Code is easy to follow, and more ‘human friendly’ than RDF.

The semantic web Benefits of using microformats Flexible and can be put to many different uses. Require very little time / money investment.

The semantic web Drawbacks of using microformats Lack some of the power of RDF. Browser support is still somewhat patchy.

The semantic web Recommendations Continue to use microformats. Liaise with Jadu to see how CMS can help deliver semantic data.

The semantic web Recommendations Potentially some more research on Endeca to see if any benefits can be derived. Investigate if Open Calais could provide any quick wins.

The semantic web We’ve covered quite a lot of ground to this point. Now there will be a practical demonstration of the semantic web in action. Thanks for listening.