Semantic Web Reloaded: An Update on the Progress of Semantic Web technologies

Abstract

Our Kunstliche Intelligenz edition from July 2003 focussed on a few novel technologies that can be subsumed by two words: ‘‘Semantic Web’’. Now, 13 years thereafter we would like to feature an update. Semantic Web—reloaded if you wish. The first edition came out a few years after the development of important technologies in this area such as OWL or DL reasoning engines. OWL resulted from a quasi merger between OIL (Ontology Inference Layer, a European proposal) and DAML (DARPA Agent Markup Language, the American counterpart). Examples for DL-reasoning engines are FaCT or RACER, just to name a few. SPARQL, the important query language that is used nowadays to query ontologies wasn’t even around until later, emerging in 2008. The 03/2003 special issue also featured two interviews with key figures from the community: James Hendler, at that time Computer Science Professor and Head of Semantic Web and Agents Research at the University of Maryland and Patrick Hayes, a Senior Research Scientist at IHMC in Pensacola, FL. I re-read the independently created interviews remembering asking them about the future of Semantic Web technologies. One of the questions was: ‘‘What can we expect in the next 2, 5, and 10 years and what are the steps to fulfill these goals?’’ Here is a rundown from what the two experts answered with regard to the expectations in 10 years: James Hendler: ‘‘In ten years we will see this (Semantic Web, editorial office) as a technology that is pervasive, it is just part of the Web.’’ Patrick Hayes answered this question more reluctantly, mentioning that ten years is a long way to think ahead. Nevertheless he said: ‘‘I think, the Semantic Web will be integrated into, a part of, the Web; most people wont see a difference. Looking back, people will wonder how anyone managed to live without intelligent software agents’’. It is up to you— the reader—to find out whether those predictions became reality. The Kunstliche Intelligenz delivers new material in form of this special issue. I think it is fair to say that our guest editors Profs Birte Glimm and Heiner Stuckenschmidt started to work in the areas of Semantic Web technologies around the time of the publication of the first Semantic Web special issue in our journal. Heiner Stuckenschmidt even contributed with an article. One could even argue that they built their career on Semantic Web technologies. We couldn’t think of better Guest-Editors for this special issue. And now it is time to wish you a pleasant reading with the new issue of Kunstliche Intelligenz—Semantic Web Reloaded!