Workshop on Semantic Web: Models, Architecture and Management September 21, 2000 Lisbon, Portugal Semantic Web & Info. Brokering Opportunities, Commercialization and Challenges by Amit Sheth Director, Large-Scale Distributed Information Systems Lab. University of Georgia, Athens, GA USAFounder/Chairman, Taalee, Inc.Special thanks, Digital Library project team at LSDIS Semantics: meaning or relationship of meanings, or relating to meaning (Webster), meaning and use of data (Information System) Semantic Web: The Web of data (and connections) with meaning in the sense that a computer program can learn enough about what the data means to process it Imagine what computers can understand when there is a vast tangle of interconnected terms and data that can automatically be followed. (Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, 1999) A Web in which machine reasoning will be ubiquitous and devastatingly powerful. A place where the whim of a human being and the reasoning of a machine coexist in an ideal, powerful mixture. A semantic Web would permit more accurate and efficient Web searches, which are among the most important Web-based activities. A personal definition Semantic Web: The concept that Web-accessible content can be organized semantically, rather than though syntactic and structural methods. Markups/Standards: DAML: Semantic Annotations and Directory; DSML: Directory (of course, XML, RDF, namespaces) Commercialization 1 (Oingo): Taxonomy Ontology and Semantic Techniques Commercialization 2 (Taalee): Knowledge- base (Taxonomy, Domain Modeling, Entities and Relationships) and Semantic Techniques Research (Digital Earth at UGA): Complex Relationships 1.Create an Agent Mark-Up Language (DAML) built upon XML that allows users to provide machine- readable semantic annotations for specific communities of interest. 2.Create tools that embed DAML markup on to web pages and other information sources in a manner that is transparent and beneficial to the users. 3.Use these tools to build up, instantiate, operate, and test sets of agent-based programs that markup and use DAML .applications allow semantic interoperability at the level we currently have syntactic interoperability in XML DARPA Agent Mark Up Language (DAML) Program Manager: Professor James HendlerJames Hendler DAML an Example