W3: Resource Description Framework (Definitions)

"A framework for constructing logical languages that can work together in the Semantic Web. A way of using XML for data rather than just documents." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"An application of XML that enables the creation of rich, structured, machinereadable resource descriptions." (J P Getty Trust, "Introduction to Metadata" 2nd Ed., 2008)

"An example of ‘metadata’ language (metadata = data about data) used to describe generic ‘things’ (‘resources’, according to the RDF jargon) on the Web. An RDF document is a list of statements under the form of triples having the classical format: <object, property, value>, where the elements of the triples can be URIs (Universal Resource Identifiers), literals (mainly, free text) and variables. RDF statements are normally written into XML format (the so-called ‘RDF/XML syntax’)." (Gian P Zarri, "RDF and OWL for Knowledge Management", 2011)

"The basic technique for expressing knowledge on The Semantic Web." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A graph model for describing formal Web resources and their metadata, to enable automatic processing of such descriptions." (Mahdi Gueffaz, "ScaleSem Approach to Check and to Query Semantic Graphs", 2015)

"Specified by W3C, is a conceptual data modeling framework. It is used to specify content over the World Wide Web, most commonly used by Semantic Web." (T R Gopalakrishnan Nair, "Intelligent Knowledge Systems", 2015)

"Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a framework for expressing information about resources. Resources can be anything, including documents, people, physical objects, and abstract concepts." (Fu Zhang & Haitao Cheng, "A Review of Answering Queries over Ontologies Based on Databases", 2016)

"Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendation which provides a generic mechanism for representing information about resources on the Web." (Hairong Wang et al, "Fuzzy Querying of RDF with Bipolar Preference Conditions", 2016)

"Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a W3C recommendation that provides a generic mechanism for giving machine readable semantics to resources. Resources can be anything we want to talk about on the Web, e.g., a single Web page, a person, a query, and so on." (Jingwei Cheng et al, "RDF Storage and Querying: A Literature Review", 2016)

"The Resource Description Framework (RDF) metamodel is a directed graph, so it identifies one node (the one from which the edge is pointing) as the subject of the triple, and the other node (the one to which the edge is pointing) as its object. The edge is referred to as the predicate of the triple." (Robert J Glushko, "The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition" 4th Ed., 2016)

"Resource description framework (RDF) is a family of world wide web consortium (W3C) specifications originally designed as a metadata data model." (Senthil K Narayanasamy & Dinakaran Muruganantham, "Effective Entity Linking and Disambiguation Algorithms for User-Generated Content (UGC)", 2018)

"A framework for representing information on the web." (Sybase, "Open Server Server-Library/C Reference Manual", 2019)

"Resource description framework (RDF) is a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) recommendation which provides a generic mechanism for representing information about resources on the web." (Zongmin Ma & Li Yan, "Towards Massive RDF Storage in NoSQL Databases: A Survey", 2019)

"It is a language that allows to represent knowledge using triplets of the subject-predicate-object type." (Antonio Sarasa-Cabezuelo & José Luis Fernández-Vindel, "A Model for the Creation of Academic Activities Based on Visits", 2020)

"The RDF is a standard for representing knowledge on the web. It is primarily designed for building the semantic web and has been widely adopted in database and datamining communities. RDF models a fact as a triple which consists of a subject (s), a predicate (p), and an object (o)." (Kamalendu Pal, "Ontology-Assisted Enterprise Information Systems Integration in Manufacturing Supply Chain", 2020)

"It is a language that allows to represent knowledge using triplets of the subject-predicate-object type." (Antonio Sarasa-Cabezuelo, "Creation of Value-Added Services by Retrieving Information From Linked and Open Data Portals", 2021)

"Resource Description Framework, the native way of describing linked data. RDF is not exactly a data format; rather, there are a few equivalent formats in which RDF can be expressed, including an XML-based format. RDF data takes the form of ‘triples’ (each atomic piece of data has three parts, namely a subject, predicate and object), and can be stored in a specialised database called a triple store." ("Open Data Handbook")

W3: Semantic Web (Definitions)

"The Web of data with meaning in the sense that a computer program can learn enough about what the data  means to process it." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"An evolving, collaborative effort led by the W3C whose goal is to provide a common framework that will allow data to be shared and re-used across various applications as well as across enterprise and community boundaries." (J P Getty Trust, "Introduction to Metadata" 2nd Ed, 2008)

"Communication protocols and standards that would include descriptions of the item on the Web such as people, documents, events, products, and organizations, as well as, relationship between documents and relationships between people." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"The Web of data with meaning in the sense that a computer program can learn enough about what the data means to process it. The principle that one should represent separately the essence of a document and the style is presented." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"A machine-processable web of smart data, [where] smart data is data that is application-independent, composeable, classified, and part of a larger information ecosystem (ontology)." (David C Hay, "Data Model Patterns: A Metadata Map", 2010)

"An evolving extension of the Web in which Web content can be expressed not only in natural language but also in a form that can be understood, interpreted, and used by intelligent computer software agents, permitting them to find, share, and integrate information more easily." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"The next-generation Internet in which all content is tagged with semantic tags defined in published ontologies. Interlinking these ontologies will allow software agents to reason about information not directly connected by document creators." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"is a term coined by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) director Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It describes methods and technologies to allow machines to understand the meaning - or 'semantics'- of information on the World Wide Web." (Jingwei Cheng et al, "RDF Storage and Querying: A Literature Review", 2016)

"The vision of a Semantic Web world builds upon the web world, but adds some further prescriptions and constraints for how to structure descriptions. The Semantic Web world unifies the concept of a resource as it has been developed in this book, with the web notion of a resource as anything with a URI. On the Semantic Web, anything being described must have a URI. Furthermore, the descriptions must be structured as graphs, adhering to the RDF metamodel and relating resources to one another via their URIs. Advocates of Linked Data further prescribe that those descriptions must be made available as representations transferred over HTTP." (Robert J Glushko, "The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition" 4th Ed., 2016)

"A collaborative effort to enable the publishing of semantic machine-readable and shareable data on the Web." (Panos Alexopoulos, "Semantic Modeling for Data", 2020)

Tim Berners-Lee - Collected Quotes

"In providing a system for manipulating this sort of information, the hope would be to allow a pool of information to develop which could grow and evolve with the organisation and the projects it describes. For this to be possible, the method of storage must not place its own restraints on the information." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Information Management: A Proposal", 1989)

"Non-centralisation: Information systems start small and grow. They also start isolated and then merge. A new system must allow existing systems to be linked together without requiring any central control or coordination." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Information Management: A Proposal", 1989)

"The actual observed working structure of the organisation is a multiply connected 'web' whose interconnections evolve with time." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Information Management: A Proposal", 1989)

"This is why a 'web' of notes with links (like references) between them is far more useful than a fixed hierarchical system. When describing a complex system, many people resort to diagrams with circles and arrows. Circles and arrows leave one free to describe the interrelationships between things in a way that tables, for example, do not. The system we need is like a diagram of circles and arrows, where circles and arrows can stand for anything." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Information Management: A Proposal", 1989)

"We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities. The aim would be to allow a place to be found for any information or reference which one felt was important, and a way of finding it afterwards. The result should be sufficiently attractive to use that it the information contained would grow past a critical threshold, so that the usefulness the scheme would in turn encourage its increased use." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Information Management: A Proposal", 1989)

"A computer typically keeps information in rigid hierarchies and matrices, whereas the human mind has the special ability to link random bits of data." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"An intriguing possibility, given a large hypertext database with typed links, is that it allows some degree of automatic analysis. [ . . . ] Imagine making a large three-dimensional model, with people represented by little spheres, and strings between people who have something in common at work. Now imagine picking up the structure and shaking it, until you make some sense of the tangle: Perhaps you see tightly knit groups in some places, and in some places weak areas of communication spanned by only a few people. Perhaps a linked information system will allow us to see the real structure of the organization in which we work." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"I have a dream for the Web [...] and it has two parts. In the first part, the Web becomes a much more powerful means for collaboration between people. I have always imagine  the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create. Furthermore, the dream of people-to-people communication through shared knowledge must be possible for groups of all sizes, interacting electronically with as much ease as they do now in person." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"The first form of semantic data on the Web was metadata information about information. (There happens to be a company called Metadata, but I use the term here as a generic noun, as it has been used for many years.) Metadata consist of a set of properties of a document. By definition, metadata are data, as well as data about data. They describe catalogue information about who wrote Web pages and what they are about; information about how Web pages fit together and relate to each other as versions; translations, and reformattings; and social information such as distribution rights and privacy codes." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect - to help people work together - and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our web-like existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"What we believe, endorse, agree with, and depend on is representable and, increasingly, represented on the Web. We all have to ensure that the society we build with the Web is the sort we intend." (Tim Berners-Lee, "Weaving the Web", 1999)

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." (Tim Berners-Lee et al, "The Semantic Web", Scientific American, 2001)

"The Web does not just connect machines, it connects people." (Tim Berners-Lee, [speech] 2008)

"If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along." (Tim Berners-Lee, [interview])

"One of the powerful things about networking technology like the Internet or the Web or the Semantic Web [...] is that the things we've just done with them far surpass the imagination of the people who invented them." (Tim Berners-Lee)

"The first step is putting data on the Web in a form that machines can naturally understand, or converting it to that form. This creates what I call a Semantic Web-a web of data that can be processed directly or indirectly by machines." (Tim Berners-Lee)

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." (Tim Berners-Lee)