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A Semantic Web Primer, third edition
A new edition of the widely used guide to the key ideas, languages, and technologies of the Semantic Web The development of the Semantic Web, with machine-readable content, has the potential to revolutionize the World Wide Web and its uses. A Semantic Web Primer provides an introduction and guide to this continuously evolving field, describing its key ideas, languages, and technologies. Suitable for use as a textbook or for independent study by professionals, it concentrates on undergraduate-level fundamental concepts and techniques that will enable readers to proceed with building applications on their own and includes exercises, project descriptions, and annotated references to relevant online materials. The third edition of this widely used text has been thoroughly updated, with significant new material that reflects a rapidly developing field. Treatment of the different languages (OWL2, rules) expands the coverage of RDF and OWL, defining the data model independently of XML and including coverage of N3/Turtle and RDFa. A chapter is devoted to OWL2, the new W3C standard. This edition also features additional coverage of the query language SPARQL, the rule language RIF and the possibility of interaction between rules and ontology languages and applications. The chapter on Semantic Web applications reflects the rapid developments of the past few years. A new chapter offers ideas for term projects. Additional material, including updates on the technological trends and research directions, can be found at
288 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 17, 2016
A decent introduction to the concepts of the Semantic Web, giving the reader a solid grounding in the tools and techniques to build a machine-understandable web of information, though it doesn't really go into much details about how to overcome the difficulties of building and maintaining a workable ontology, other than suggesting some possible approaches.
A couple of caveats: (1) to get the most out of this, you really need to enjoy reading page after page of XML, (2) in a few places you're going to need to have a bit of a grounding in first order logic, if you don't want to be left staring in bafflement at a series of inverted letters and strange symbols, and (3) the authors have an irritating habit of referring to concepts and then either not defining them at all, or not defining them until later in the book - this is a book that would really benefit from access to a web browser to supplement the text and follow the references.
A couple of caveats: (1) to get the most out of this, you really need to enjoy reading page after page of XML, (2) in a few places you're going to need to have a bit of a grounding in first order logic, if you don't want to be left staring in bafflement at a series of inverted letters and strange symbols, and (3) the authors have an irritating habit of referring to concepts and then either not defining them at all, or not defining them until later in the book - this is a book that would really benefit from access to a web browser to supplement the text and follow the references.
May 21, 2016
Great introduction that gives breadth to understanding the semantic web, short and concise.
Try reading any W3C Primer (like https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/NOTE-rdf11... or http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/) and get this book if you like what you read. Would be better if it had some practical programming exercises.
Try reading any W3C Primer (like https://www.w3.org/TR/2014/NOTE-rdf11... or http://json-ld.org/primer/latest/) and get this book if you like what you read. Would be better if it had some practical programming exercises.
February 15, 2011
This is primer, so I thought I'd get a broader perspective on the Semantic Web, but instead I filled in the areas that I already knew. In the 3rd edition I hope they add some of the new info out there about Linked Data.
August 1, 2012
Because this book's intended audience is the computer science community, and not the library community, I didn't find it terribly useful. But I do think it's a fairly well-written text for its purpose.
June 7, 2015
A very helpful introduction plus a few "controversial". It's accepted so far it's one of serious prominent book in this area. Only till the middle of stack layers have been discussed technically ... upper layers such as trust is still In conceptual.. thanks
December 9, 2010
it gives me a big hand on my mid-term of Semantic Web
June 24, 2012
Simple examples that made many concepts clear to me for the first time.
January 24, 2013
A good book to learn about the Semantic Web.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews