About This Course

Course Overview

This course explores the Semantic Web stack, from fundamental concepts to practical implementation. Through hands-on projects, you'll master RDF, RDFS, OWL, and Semantic Web Services to create intelligent, queryable knowledge systems.

Based on the textbook structure with 4 parts covering 14 chapters, each week corresponds to one chapter for comprehensive learning.

Course Materials

Lecture Slides

I

Introduction

Chapters 1–2 · Understanding the Web's Evolution

From Traditional Web to Semantic Web
Understanding WWW & Introduction to Metadata
Chapter 1 · Week 1
01
  • What Is WWW? Search, Integration & Web Data Mining
  • What Stops Us from Doing More?
  • A First Look at the Semantic Web
  • Introduction to Metadata Concepts
  • Metadata Considerations & Tools
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Search Engines: Traditional vs Semantic
Building and Using Search in Both Environments
Chapter 2 · Week 2
02
  • Traditional Web Search Engine Architecture
  • Building the Index Table & Conducting Search
  • Semantic Web Search Engine: Hypothetical Example
  • Web Page Markup & Common Vocabulary Problems
  • Key to Semantic Web Implementation
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II

The Nuts and Bolts of Semantic Web Technology

Chapters 3–6 · Core Technical Foundation

The Building Block: RDF
Resource Description Framework Fundamentals
Chapter 3 · Week 3
03
  • Overview: What Is RDF?
  • Basic Elements: Resource, Property, Statement
  • RDF Triples & Knowledge Representation
  • RDF Syntax: Literals, Anonymous Resources
  • Aggregation & Distributed Information
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RDFS, Taxonomy, and Ontology
Building Schemas and Class Hierarchies
Chapter 4 · Week 4
04
  • Why We Need RDFS
  • RDFS + RDF: Machine-Readability
  • Core RDFS Elements & Properties
  • Concepts of Ontology and Taxonomy
  • Inferencing Based on RDF Schema
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Web Ontology Language: OWL
Advanced Semantic Modeling & Reasoning
Chapter 5 · Week 5
05
  • OWL Class Definitions & Property Restrictions
  • allValuesFrom, someValuesFrom, hasValue
  • Cardinality Constraints & Set Operators
  • Property Characteristics: Symmetric, Transitive
  • Three Faces of OWL: Full, DL, Lite
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Validating Your OWL Ontology
Development Tools & Programming APIs
Chapter 6 · Week 6
06
  • Related Development Tools Overview
  • Validating OWL with Web Utilities
  • Using the OWL Ontology Validator
  • Understanding Validation Results
  • Programming APIs: Jena Examples
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III

Real-World Examples and Applications

Chapters 7–10 · Practical Implementations

Swoogle: Semantic Web Search Engine
Search Engine for Semantic Web Documents
Chapter 7 · Week 7
07
  • What Is Swoogle and Its Uses
  • Searching Ontologies for Reuse
  • Swoogle Architecture & SWD Discovery
  • Metadata Collection & Ranking Calculation
  • Indexation and Retrieval Examples
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FOAF: Friend of a Friend
Social Network Ontology & Vocabulary
Chapter 8 · Week 8
08
  • What FOAF Is and What It Does
  • Basic FOAF Vocabulary & Examples
  • Creating Your FOAF Document
  • Getting into the Circle: Publishing FOAF
  • Updating Ontologies Using FOAF Vocabulary
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Mark Up Your Web Document!
Semantic Markup: Connecting Two Worlds
Chapter 9 · Week 9
09
  • What Is Semantic Markup?
  • The Procedure of Semantic Markup
  • Manual vs Tool-Based Markup
  • Semantic Markup Issues: Who & Why
  • Centralized vs Decentralized Approaches
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Semantic Web Search Engine Prototype
Building a Complete Search System
Chapter 10 · Week 10
10
  • Why Traditional Search Engines Fail
  • Prototype Design: Query Processing & UI
  • Discovery Strategy: Focused Crawling
  • Vertical & Horizontal Indexation
  • Implementation Suggestions
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Tools & Materials

Additional Resources

📘

Documentation

Course guides, tutorials, and technical references

💻

Code Examples

Sample implementations and project templates

🎯

Practice Labs

Hands-on exercises and assignments

📊

Project Files

Create a complete Semantic Web application

Progression

Learning Path

Part I Weeks 1–2 (Ch 1–2): Introduction — Understanding web evolution, search engines, and the vision of the Semantic Web
Part II Weeks 3–6 (Ch 3–6): Core Technology — Mastering RDF, RDFS, OWL ontologies, and validation tools with Jena API
Part III Weeks 7–10 (Ch 7–10): Applications — Exploring Swoogle, FOAF, semantic markup, and building search engine prototypes
Part IV Weeks 11–14 (Ch 11–14): Semantic Web Services — WSDL, SOAP, UDDI, OWL-S, WSDL-S, and service discovery engines

Syllabus

Course Structure

Part 1: Introduction (Chapters 1–2) — Traditional Web limitations, metadata concepts, and building semantic search engines

Part 2: Core Technology (Chapters 3–6) — RDF fundamentals, RDFS schemas, OWL ontologies, and validation with development tools

Part 3: Applications (Chapters 7–10) — Swoogle search engine, FOAF social networks, semantic markup, and prototype systems

Part 4: Semantic Web Services (Chapters 11–14) — Web services standards (WSDL, SOAP, UDDI), OWL-S upper ontology, WSDL-S annotations, and service discovery search engines