The document discusses the Web of Data, which is a boundless graph of interconnected data available online. It describes how the Web of Data differs from just having data on the web by having links between related data points. This allows the data to have more structure and meaning. The basic building blocks that make up the Web of Data are Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples that express relationships between subjects and objects. By using HTTP URIs to identify things and RDF to express relationships, the Web of Data aims to make data on the web more connected and meaningful.

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The Web of Data
Tom Heath
Senior Research Scientist
Talis Education Ltd
July 2012, SSSW2012, Cercedilla, Spain

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This talk is about the basics!

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Overview
• Why a Web of Data is not just about data on the
Web
• Building blocks of a Web of Data (i.e. Linked Data
fundamentals)

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Data on the Web

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Data on the Web
• Takes many different forms
• Falls on a continuum of accessibility/usability,
structure, meaning and connectedness...

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Data on the Web
PDF → HTML → Microformats → CSV/XML → Microdata →RDF

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Schema.org
• The Semantic Web has gone mainstream!
• But they're trying to create one ontology for
everything!
• Is it linked to anything else?

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Issues, PDF through Microdata
• Structure, parseability
– How do we validate what we're extracting?
– Is there an underlying data model?
• How do we know what the data means?
• How do you relate parts of the data together?
• How do consumers discover related data?

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Data on the Web != A Web of Data

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If there are no links, it's not a Web!

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The Web of Data

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What is the Web of Data?
• A boundless graph of interconnected data available
online...

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What is a Graph?
Talis Education
Tom employedBy
locatedIn
Italy
studentOf bornIn
England
tutorAt
Enrico
2012-07-08
startedOn
SSSW2012
capitalOf
locatedIn Spain
near
Cercedilla Madrid

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One Graph, Many Documents
Talis Education
Tom employedBy
locatedIn
Italy
studentOf bornIn
England
tutorAt
Enrico
2012-07-08 won
startedOn
SSSW2012 lost Euro2012Final
capitalOf
locatedIn Spain
near
Cercedilla Madrid

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The RDF Data Model: Triples
Object
Subject Predicate

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The RDF Data Model: Triples
Talis
Tom employedBy

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Why I  RDF
• Clear underlying data model
• Linkability baked into the data model
• Ways to express what the data means
• Many different ways to write it (for different use
cases)
• Very easily parsed (in some cases)

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RDF Serialisation Formats
• RDFa
• RDF/XML
• N-Triples
• Turtle
• RDF/JSON

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Identifying Things in the Graph
• Use URIs
• But not any old URIs
• HTTP URIs
– (almost completely) distributed ownership
– anyone (with a credit card) can create/own them
– can identify anything
– lookup mechanism is baked in

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HTTP URIs for Things
http://www.talis.com/id/company
http://tomheath.com/id/me
http://example.org/employedBy

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Retrieving Humans over the Web

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Linked Data Hands-On Session
• Goal:
– Give practical experience of working with Linked Data from
the Web
– Give exposure to different application architectures
• Scenario
– Building a travel guide application
• Tools
– Curl, LDSpider, Fuseki, Rapper, Squin

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Questions?
• Contact Info
– tom.heath@talis.com
– http://tomheath.com/id/me
– http://www.talis.com/
– @tommyh (twitter)
• Slides
– http://tomheath.com/slides/2012-07-cercedilla-
web-of-data.pdf

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