Semantic Web

Research opportunities

Whether it is spread out across the Web, stored in digital libraries or ensconced in large enterprises, there is no shortage of information available today. Yet despite ever-more-sophisticated search engines, finding the right data can still be a challenge because it is spread among many databases and stored in many formats.

Our approach

We believe the Semantic Web has the potential to transform how information is accessed, aggregated and organized on the Web and inside the enterprise. A collaborative effort led by W3C, the Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise and community boundaries.

Research focus

Current work

Our research group aims to offer HP customers and partners the benefits of Semantic Web through:

• standards work via the W3C to support the growth of the Semantic Web
• tools development to encourage the exploration and exploitation of the Semantic Web by developers
• core research to help develop the field
• applications research to demonstrate the value of Semantic Web
• consultancy within HP to promote its use within the company

Integrating or searching across disparate data sources requires a modeling language to represent data and metadata, as well as a way of describing the underlying information model. You need to be able to represent the concepts in your domain and the relationships between them. Such an information model is called an ontology.

The Semantic Web provides a set of open standards for data modeling and information modeling, and for manipulating the resulting data. We have or are currently contributing to all these standards:

• RDF -- The Resource Description Framework is a standard for describing data and metadata.
• OWL -- Web Ontology Language describes the information model.
• SPARQL -- SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (which is on the way) will enable queries of data collections in RDF format.

Technical contributions

Most Semantic Web applications are now built using tools created by HP Labs -- in particular, Jena (the most popular Semantic Web application tool kit) and Joseki (the most popular Semantic Web server).

We have also worked with customers on Semantic Web applications -- in collaboration with HP Services. For example, we built a pilot educational portal based around Semantic Web technology for the Singapore government and piloted an information management system for a major oil and gas company.

In addition, we have prototype applications for use by consumers, such as our semantic blogging system, and a system for searching and browsing pictures on the Web using location and direction information.

Related research

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