The Semantic Web:Transforming Society Science

James HendlerMaryland Information and Network Dynamics Laboratory (MIND)

Semantic Web Agents Project (SWAP)

University of Marylandhttp://www.cs.umd.edu/~hendler

The Semantic Web

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001

The Web “off the Web”

Scientists and the Web• The World Wide Web transformed science changing

– How we publish and search – How we attend meetings– How we find data– How we track projects– …– How we find suppliers and tools

• But we didn’t help make it for our needs,– USER, not designer– Scientific community is not a leader (or driver) in Web

innovation/technology

Modern interdisciplinary science needs more than the current Web provides

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The “scientific community”

StructuralGenomics

Population Genetics

Genome sequence

Functionalgenomics Tissue

Clinical trial

Disease

Clinical Data

“… countries separated by a common language” -- (Shaw 1942 after Wilde, 1887)

biology

ecology

medicine

math

Info Techphysics

chem

astronomy

Semantic Web provides mappings

Semantic Web languages allow the combination of documents, databases, programs, sensors and anything else we can find on the Web.

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It’s not just “big iron” anymore

Cyber InfrastructureSemantic Web

- c.f. Finding, filtering, and composing services- c.f. Databases and distributed computing but we must answer some (policy) questions…

Are we missing the target (again)?

Distribution

Data &Computation Scaling

Cyber-infrastructure

Semantic Web

E-science

Teraflops/petabytes

Web scaleE-business

Society’sNeeds

Rethinking Govt Funding • Good news: the funding is there

– NSF and NIH and DOD and DOE and …• Bad news: Cannot fund modern scientific

infrastructure through traditional discipline-based funding mechanisms– NSF vs. NIH vs. DOE vs. DOD vs …– Panels of biologists or chemists or physicists or

information technologists or…• Need to consider new mechanisms

– Crossing agencies,Combining Disciplines– Who has the charge for such cross cutting work?

Rethinking Software-based Commerce

• Software Patenting and Licensing is out of control– We could not have created the Web in the current

software environment!• Scientists and Information Technologists

require open-source software – Without it, no experimentation with new models,

languages and techniques• And not an “anti-business” position

– The big winners on the web made it available for free:• Browsers, Plug-ins, Tools, Publication software

Conclusion• Semantic Web offers powerful new web

technologies for interdisciplinary science• Cyber Infrastucture and Semantic Web visions

are mutually beneficial– Distribution and power together are needed for a truly

interdisciplinary science– Offer a powerful combination for approaching socially

critical technical challenges • But there are some issues

– Current scientific funding models may not be appropriate– Dissemination of technology must be a priority