Volume 1, Number 25 December 27, 2003
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Volume 1, Number 25 http://isedj.org/1/25/ December 27, 2003 In this issue: Preparing for the Semantic Web Antonio M. Lopez, Jr Xavier University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA 70125 Abstract: As today’s undergraduates in computer information systems work towards learning those skills needed in the world of e-Commerce (e.g., HTML, Java, XML, etc.), an enhancement to the World Wide Web is being “spun.” The Semantic Web is the envisioned end-state for the movement of the World Wide Web from words, images, and audio understood only by humans to those same things “wrapped in” organizing concepts and relationships understood by both humans and software agents. Since the Semantic Web is a research effort under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium, how are faculty members to expose students to the emerging technology that will impact how e-Commerce will be supported in the future? This paper highlights some of the World Wide Web Consortium work done thus far in moving the current Web toward a Semantic Web. It next presents an overview of ontology development, the key enabling technology for the Semantic Web. Finally, it shows how undergraduate researchers, mentored by their faculty members, can develop ontologies that lead naturally into preparing for the Semantic Web. Keywords: World Wide Web, e-Commerce, semantic web, ontology, undergraduate research Recommended Citation: Lopez (2003). Preparing for the Semantic Web. Information Systems Education Journal, 1 (25). http://isedj.org/1/25/. ISSN: 1545-679X. (Also appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2003: §2521. ISSN: 1542-7382.) This issue is on the Internet at http://isedj.org/1/25/ ISEDJ 1 (25) Information Systems Education Journal 2 The Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ) is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Education Special Interest Group (EDSIG) of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP, Chicago, Illinois). • ISSN: 1545-679X. • First issue: 2003. • Title: Information Systems Education Journal. Variant titles: IS Education Journal; IS Ed Journal; ISEDJ. • Physical format: online. • Publishing frequency: irregular; as each article is approved, it is published immediately and constitutes a complete separate issue of the current volume. • Single issue price: free. • Subscription address: [email protected]. • Subscription price: free. • Electronic access: http://isedj.org/ • Contact person: Don Colton ([email protected]) Editor Don Colton Brigham Young Univ Hawaii Laie, Hawaii The Information Systems Education Conference (ISECON) solicits and presents each year papers on topics of interest to IS Educators. Peer-reviewed papers are submitted to this journal. ISECON Papers Chair Associate Papers Chair Associate Papers Chair William J. Tastle Mark (Buzz) Hensel Amjad A. Abdullat Ithaca College Univ of Texas at Arlington West Texas A&M Univ Ithaca, New York Arlington, Texas Canyon, Texas EDSIG activities include the publication of ISEDJ, the organization and execution of the annual ISECON conference held each fall, the publication of the Journal of Information Systems Education (JISE), and the designation and honoring of an IS Educator of the Year. • The Foundation for Information Technology Education has been the key sponsor of ISECON over the years. • The Association for Information Technology Professionals (AITP) provides the corporate umbrella under which EDSIG operates. AITP celebrates its 50th year as a professional society in 2003. c Copyright 2003 EDSIG. In the spirit of academic freedom, permission is granted to make and distribute unlimited copies of this issue in its PDF or printed form, so long as the entire document is presented, and it is not modified in any substantial way. c 2003 EDSIG http://isedj.org/1/25/ December 27, 2003 ISEDJ 1 (25) Lopez 3 Preparing for the Semantic Web Antonio M. Lopez, Jr. Computer Sciences and Computer Engineering Department Xavier University of Louisiana New Orleans, LA 70125, USA Abstract As today’s undergraduates in computer information systems work towards learning those skills needed in the world of e-Commerce (e.g., HTML, Java, XML, etc.), an enhancement to the World Wide Web is being “spun.” The Semantic Web is the envisioned end-state for the movement of the World Wide Web from words, images, and audio understood only by humans to those same things “wrapped in” organizing concepts and relationships understood by both humans and software agents. Since the Semantic Web is a research effort under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium, how are faculty members to expose students to the emerging technology that will impact how e-Commerce will be supported in the future? This paper highlights some of the World Wide Web Consortium work done thus far in moving the current Web toward a Semantic Web. It next presents an overview of ontology develop- ment, the key enabling technology for the Semantic Web. Finally, it shows how undergradu- ate researchers, mentored by their faculty members, can develop ontologies that lead natu- rally into preparing for the Semantic Web. Keywords: World Wide Web, e-Commerce, semantic web, ontology, undergraduate research 1. INTRODUCTION valuable corporate asset, and this knowledge needs to be shared with global partners so The World Wide Web (WWW) is a popular that each can improve their competitive communications medium for the exchange of edge and increase their market shares. information among people – i.e., individuals Competitive businesses must find effective or people who are members of or represent ways of working together to achieve their organized groups (non-profit) or businesses goals. RosettaNet (www.rosettanet.org) is (profit). The computers that people use, an example of a non-profit consortium of whether sitting on their desks at work, in major information technology, electronic their homes, accompanying them on busi- components, and semiconductor manufac- ness trips, in cyber-cafes where they social- turing businesses working to create and im- ize, or in public libraries where they study, plement industry-wide, open business proc- are all potential points of entry into the ess standards. In B2C, today’s customers WWW network of information exchange and usually spend a significant amount of time business transactions. Unfortunately, the browsing for businesses that sell a desired success of the communications medium and product and, typically, only a few such busi- the large volume of information that it pro- nesses are browsed before customer ex- vides have actually hampered e-Commerce haustion occurs and the customer settles for growth (Davies et al. 2003), both e-Business what has been found. Competitive busi- (B2B) and Web-Commerce (B2C). In B2B nesses must find effective ways of reaching for example, today’s businesses are coming customers. Makebuzz to the realization that their knowledge is a (www.makebuzz.com) is an example of a for c 2003 EDSIG http://isedj.org/1/25/ December 27, 2003 ISEDJ 1 (25) Lopez 4 profit company that combines a massive nology officer for software at Hewlett- bank of online marketing knowledge and Packard, is quoted as saying, “We expect the artificial intelligence (AI) strategies to in- Semantic Web to be as big a revolution as crease the chances that their client’s prod- the original Web itself.” ucts will be visible enough on a popular search engine listing so that a potential cus- Starting with the current Web, a community tomer might select them for further product of users must decide how information on a browsing. Web page can be given well-defined seman- tics, thus making this new Semantic Web While RosettaNet and Makebuzz are respec- page understandable to a software agent. tively today’s solution to the corporation’s The community of users that has accepted sharing of business knowledge problem and this challenge is the World Wide Web Con- the customer’s information overload prob- sortium (W3C). W3C (www.w3c.org) is a lem, tomorrow’s solution can be found, in very active organization having offices in part, in the use of software agents (also Valbonne, France; Cambridge, MA, USA; and called intelligent agents) that “understand” Tokyo, Japan with a full-time staff of more Web pages. Software agents are computer than 60 and more than 500 member organi- programs that work without direct human zations (Cherry 2002). Slowly but surely, control or constant supervision to achieve W3C has been moving the Web toward the goals set forth by humans (Stojkovic and Semantic Web end-state. Two important Lupton 2000). If the WWW was under- steps were the extensible markup language standable to software agents, much more so (XML) and the resource description frame- than today’s keyword match or heuristic work (RDF). search of hyperlinks, then software agents could collect, filter, and process desired in- Presently, XML allows creators of Web pages formation found on the WWW for customers to produce and use their own markup tags or businesses. At present, both elements of (Boggs 2002). However, if other users of e-Commerce (B2B and B2C) are being held the Web know the meaning of the XML tags, back by the lack of standards for (1) repre- then they too can write scripts that make sentation of the information contained on a use of those tags. Thus, a small step has Web page, (2) translation of that information been taken to represent the information con- into other more useful forms, and (3) de- tained on a Web page and make it under- scription of content that is software agent standable to a software agent. Unfortu- understandable (Fensel 2001). If standards nately, XML does not provide standard data in these three areas are defined, then com- structures and terminologies to describe mercial software can be developed to auto- business processes and the exchange of matically encode the semantics of a Web product information (Fensel 2001). So as page as the Web page is being created.