rdfa: the semantic web's missing link
DESCRIPTION
This presentation was given at SemTech 2009. RDFa combines the power of RDF with the ease of publishing of HTML, making it the missing link of the semantic web. Now anyone who is able to publish to the web -- from bloggers, to corporates to governments -- can easily publish to the semantic web. This session will introduce the key ideas of RDFa and its syntax, by way of a case-study of a project from a UK government department. We'll also survey the state of support in tools and software.TRANSCRIPT
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RDFa: The semantic web's missing link
Mark Birbeck
SemTech 2009
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Solution part 1
RDFa allows anyone who can publish HTML, to publish data.
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Solution part 2
RDFa covers all of RDF.
(Well...nearly.)
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Solution
So RDFa allows us to publish data, through the simple means of HTML and HTTP.
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Why is RDFa the semantic web's missing link?
Can now publish RDF as easily as HTML
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What does RDFa look like?
There are some metadata features in HTML already...
...so we give them an RDF interpretation...
...then we generalise them...
...and then we add a few more.
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HTML's metadata features (1)
<html> <head> <title>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</title> <meta name="author" content="Mark Birbeck" /> <meta name="created" content="2009-05-09" /> <link rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" /> </head> . . .</html>
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HTML's metadata features (2)
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" >CC Attribution-ShareAlike</a>
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
>CC Attribution-ShareAlike</a>
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RDFa extends @rel/@href to images
<img src="image01.png" rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
/>
<img src="image02.png" rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
/>
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RDFa extends meta/@content to body
<html> <head> <title>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</title> <meta name="author" content="Mark Birbeck" /> <meta name="created" content="2009-05-09" /> </head> <body> <h1>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</h1> Author: <em
>Mark Birbeck</em> Created: <em
>May 9th, 2009</em> </body></html>
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RDFa extends meta/@content to body
<html> <head> <title>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</title>
</head> <body> <h1>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</h1> Author: <em property="author" content="Mark Birbeck" >Mark Birbeck</em> Created: <em property="created" content="2009-05-09" >May 9th, 2009</em> </body></html>
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RDFa extends meta/@content to body
<html> <head> <title>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</title>
</head> <body> <h1>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</h1> Author: <em property="author" >Mark Birbeck</em> Created: <em property="created" content="2009-05-09" >May 9th, 2009</em> </body></html>
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Vocabularies use CURIEs
<html xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"> <head>
<title>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</title>
</head> <body> <h1>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</h1> Author: <em property="dc:creator" >Mark Birbeck</em> Created: <em property="dc:created" content="2009-05-09" >May 9th, 2009</em> </body></html>
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CURIEs, or Compact URIsNamed after Marie Curie, who
was the first person to receive two Nobel prizes, one for physics and one for chemistry.
CURIEs allow a full URI to be expressed in a simple prefix:suffix form.
The 'suffix' part is looser than in XML namespaces, supporting formulations such as abc:123.
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Properties can also apply to images
<img src="image01.png” rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
/>
<img src="image02.png” rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
/>
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Properties can also apply to images
<img src="image01.png" rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/" property="dc:creator" content="Mark Birbeck"
/>
<img src="image02.png" rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
property="dc:creator" content="Mark Birbeck"/>
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Relationships and properties on anything<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-
guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds" >The 5 minute guide to RDFa...in only 6 minutes and 40 seconds</a>
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Relationships and properties on anything<a rel="license" href="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-
guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds" >The 5 minute guide to RDFa...in only 6 minutes and 40 seconds</a>
Doesn't say what we want.
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Relationships and properties on anything<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-
guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds" >The 5 minute guide to RDFa...in only 6 minutes and 40 seconds</a>
is licensed under
<a
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/"
>CC BY SA</a>.
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Relationships and properties on anything<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-
guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds" >The 5 minute guide to RDFa...in only 6 minutes and 40 seconds</a>
is licensed under
<a about="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds"
rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/"
>CC BY SA</a>.
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Relationships and properties on anything<a href="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-
guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds" >The 5 minute guide to RDFa...in only 6 minutes and 40 seconds</a>
is licensed under
<a about="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds"
rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/" property="dc:creator" content="Mark Birbeck"
>CC BY SA</a>.
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@about sets context
<div about="http://www.slideshare.net/mark.birbeck/the-5-minute-guide-to-rdfain-only-6-minutes-40-seconds">
<h1>The 5 minute guide to RDFa...</h1> Author: <em property="dc:creator" >Mark Birbeck</em> Created: <em property="dc:created" content="2009-05-09" >May 9th, 2009</em> </div>
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@about sets context
<html xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"> <head>
<title>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</title>
</head> <body>
<h1>RDFa: Now everyone can have an API</h1> Author: <em property="dc:creator"
>Mark Birbeck</em> Created: <em property="dc:created" content="2009-05-09" >May 9th, 2009</em> </body></html>
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Basics of RDFa
• generalise HTML's existing semantic features;• add support for CURIEs for property and relationship
names;• add @about.
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Advanced RDFa
• use of @datatype to set the data type of @content;• use of @typeof to set rdf:type;• support for bnodes;• support for XML literals;• ability to chain statements together.
Note that since RDFa supports all of the features you'll find in RDF, then it means that you can even mark-up OWL documents in HTML.
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Tools
• server-side parsers;• client-side parsers and post-processors.
See http://rdfa.info/rdfa-implementations
Also note my RDFa parser Ubiquity RDFa and Jeni Tennison's jQuery-based rdfQuery, as two further client-side processors that aren't mentioned there.
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Mark Birbeck
Managing Director, Backplane Ltd.
http://webBackplane.com/mark-birbeck
http://twitter.com/markbirbeck