The Semantic Web Coming of Age: Technologies and Implementations

Virtual Conference

About the Virtual Conference

The Semantic Web, the phrase coined by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, envisioned the Internet as a common framework of data that can be shared across numerous platforms. Libraries and publishers are among those leading the charge with projects and initiatives aimed at making information and resources more widely available in the greater web of data.

This virtual conference will look at the challenges and opportunities available through the Semantic Web, highlighting applications, projects, and initiatives that are changing the way libraries and publishers structure their metadata and improve the accessibility of their content.

Event Sessions

11:10 am - 11:10 am: Introduction

Speaker

11:10 am - 12:00 pm: Keynote Address

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12:00 pm - 12:45 pm: The W3C Semantic Web Initiative

Speaker

Ralph Swick

Domain Lead of the Information and Knowledge Domain
W3C

12:45 pm - 1:30 pm: Lunch Break

1:30 pm - 2:15 pm: Semantic Web Applications in Libraries: The Road to BIBFRAME

Speaker

Kevin Ford

Network Development & MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress

Beginning around 2008, libraries started focusing their resources on publishing their authority data as Linked Data, which is an application of the Semantic Web. Most notably, persons, organizations, places, and concepts were given HTTP URIs, meaning that not only was information about persons, organizations, places, and concepts accessible via the Web, but also the identifiers – the HTTP URIs – could be used in the descriptions of other resources. This was a vital first step since those URIs would be essential to efficiently describing and publishing bibliographic resources as Linked Data, which some libraries started once the foundation had been established with the authority data. This presentation will track this brief history, culminating in a short introduction to the Library of Congress’s Bibliographic Framework (BIBFRAME) Initiative which will ultimately replace the Library’s stalwart but outmoded communication format with a solution based on semantic web technologies.

2:15 pm - 3:00 pm: The Social Data Graph: The Friend of a Friend (FOAF) Project

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3:00 pm - 3:15 pm: Afternoon Break

3:15 pm - 3:45 pm: Sharing Information on the Semantic Web: The Need for a Global License Repository

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The development of dedicated licensing schemes has been crucial in the coming of age of the first two global waves of distributed production of information: the General Public License (GPL) enabled open source software (OSS) to take over the IT industry, and the Creative Commons (CC) licenses played a similar role in the success of Web 2.0 technologies. These past experiences show that one of the challenge to overcome for the semantic web to achieve equivalent outreach might not reside in the technology itself. Instead, the efficient management of rights may, more than anything else, be the key unlocking the large-scale distributed reuse of information.

3:45 pm - 4:15 pm: Semantic Web Applications in Publishing

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4:15 pm - 5:00 pm: Conference Roundtable: Services that Build on Others Semantic Web Data: Semantic Search Beyond RDF

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Additional Information

  • Registration closes at 4:00 pm (ET) on February 18, 2014. Cancellations made by February 12, 2014 will receive a refund, less a $35 cancellation. After that date, there are no refunds.
  • Registrants will receive detailed instructions about accessing the virtual conference via e-mail the Friday prior to the event. (Anyone registering between Monday and the close of registration will receive the message shortly after the registration is received, within normal business hours.) Due to the widespread use of spam blockers, filters, out of office messages, etc., it is your responsibility to contact the NISO office if you do not receive login instructions before the start of the webinar.
  • If you have not received your Login Instruction email by 10AM (ET) on the Tuesday before the webinar, please contact the NISO office or email Juliana Wood, Educational Programs Manager at jwood@niso.org for immediate assistance.
  • Registration is per site (access for one computer) and includes access to the online recorded archive of the conference. You may have as many people as you like from the registrant's organization view the conference from that one connection. If you need additional connections, you will need to enter a separate registration for each connection needed.
  • If you are registering someone else from your organization, either use that person's e-mail address when registering or contact the NISO office to provide alternate contact information.
     
  • Conference presentation slides and Q&A will be posted to this event webpage following the live conference.
  • Registrants will receive an e-mail message containing access information to the archived conference recording within 48 hours after the event. This recording access is only to be used by the registrant's organization.