W3C and the Semantic Web

Charles McCathieNevile - charles@w3.org

Who is W3C

What does W3C do?

"Standards" for the Web, in 4 areas

  1. Achitecture
  2. Interaction
  3. Technology and Society
  4. Web Accessibility Initiative

Architecture and Interaction

Basic standards for the Web, such as

Web Accessibility Initiative

Access for all, regardless of disability

Technology and Society

Semantic Web?

What is RDF?

Resource Description Framework

How does it work?

Anyone can say anything about anything...

RDF consists of "triples" of Information Subject:



has some
relationship to


something else

Can combine like this:

label "creator" "creador" lang "es" label same as primary Author contributor subClass

What can it do?

To do things like:

To reach the vision:

Information Management: A Proposal,

--Tim Berners-Lee, CERN, March 1989

Resources linked to each other in useful ways

Why is it interesting?

A bibliographic example?

There is a work which has

As a picture?

the previous slide in pictures

"James' dream"...

Making it work in the field.

Using the information...

Why do I believe it?

I tried it! To manage an Italian legal case

And I am innocent...

Thank you


This Presentation (will be)



--chaals: charles@w3.org

the rest

some stuff collected together