Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability

Abstract

While this statement seems obvious, this has not been so a few years ago, when basic research funding seemed to be running out, and industrial uptake was hardly happening. In the meantime, we do not only see sustained funding for Semantic Web related research (in particular by the European Commission), but also significant investment by industry, including major IT and venture capital companies. The Semantic Web is here to stay – and to grow. The Semantic Web is multidisciplinary and heterogeneous. Many Semantic Web researchers maintain close ties to neighboring disciplines which provide methods or application areas for their work. However, the Semantic Web has now established itself as a research field in its own rights. Consequently, a growing number of researchers, in particular those of the second or third generation, seem to identify themselves with the Semantic Web as their primary field of work. The growing number of top quality events dedicated to Semantic Web topics is also a clear indication of this trend. Another indicator is the increasing interweavement of Semantic Web methods into related disciplines leading to research topics such as geospatialsemantics, the Semantic Sensor Web, semantic desktop, or work on cultural heritage. The Semantic Web journal is set up to be a forum for highest-quality research contributions on all aspects of the Semantic Web. Its scope encompasses work in neighboring disciplines which is motivated by the Semantic Web vision. Besides the publishing of research contributions, it is also an outlet for reports on tools, systems, applications, and ontologies which enable research, rather than being direct research contributions.1 The journal also publishes top-quality surveys which serve as introductions to core topics of Semantic Web research. The journal’s subtitle – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability – reflects the wide scope of the journal, by putting an emphasis on enabling new technologies and methods. Interoperability refers to aspects such as the seamless integration of data from heterogeneous sources, on-the-fly composition and interoperation of Web services, and next-generation search engines. Usability encompasses new information retrieval paradigms, user interfaces and interaction, and visualization techniques, which in turn require methods for dealing with context dependency, personalization, trust, and provenance, amongst others, while hiding the underlying computational issues from the user. Applicability refers to the rapidly growing application areas of Semantic Web technologies and methods, to the issue of bringing state-of-the-art research results to bear on real-world applications, and to the development of new methods and foundations driven by real application needs from various domains.