RDF Tools

1
RDF Tools

• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/

UKOLN is funded by the British Library Research
and Innovation Centre, the Joint Information
Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding
Councils, as well as by project funding from the
JISCs Electronic Libraries Programme and the
European Union. UKOLN also receives support
from the University of Bath where it is based.
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Contents

• RDF Recap
• RDF Tools
• RDF applications
• Creating RDF
• Using RDF
• Issues

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RDF

• RDF
• The Resource Description Framework
• Can be regarded as
• A framework for metadata applications
• A framework for "knowledge representation"
• RDF Model represented using XML
• More than XML - based on a mathematical model
  which defines relationships

4
RDF Browser Support
http//www.netscape.com/

• Mozilla (Netscape's source code release) includes
  support for RDF
• This example shows a sitemapping application
• The Hotwired and Netscape websites contain a link
  to an RDF site map

ltLINK RELsitemap SRC"/rdf/sitemap.rdfroot"
NAME"HotWired" TYPE"text/rdf"gt
ltLINK RELsitemap SRC"/netcenter.rdfroot"
NAME"Netscape Netcenter" TYPE"text/rdf"gt
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RDF Sitemap For Netscape
This is not valid RDF!!

• ltRDFRDFgt
• ltTopic id"root" name"Netscape Netcenter"gt
  
• ltchildgtltTopic id"Netcenter"
  name"Netcenter"gt
• ltchildgtltTopic id"Commerce"
  name"Commerce"gt
• ltchild
  href"http//home.netscape.com/netcenter/marketpla
  ce/index.html" name"Market"/gt
• lt/Topicgtlt/childgt
• ltchildgtltTopic
  id"Community" name"Community"gt
• ltchild
  href"http//home.netscape.com/assist/isp_select/i
  ndex.html" name"ISP Select"/gt
• ltchild
  href"http//form.netscape.com/directory/html/md_u
  nreg_main.html" name"Members "/gt
• ltchild
  href"http//www.newaol.com/aim/netscape/adb00.htm
  l" name"Netscape AOL "/gt
• ltchild
  href"http//home.netscape.com/netcenter/vo/index.
  html" name"Virtual Office"/gt
• lt/Topicgtlt/childgt
• ltchildgtltTopic
  id"Computing" name"Computing"gt
• ltchild
  href"http//home.netscape.com/download/index.html
  " name"Netscape Download"/gt
• ltchild
  href"http//merchant.netscape.com/netstore/store.
  html" name"Netscape Store"/gt
• ltchild
  href"http//home.netscape.com/download/su2.html"
  name"Smart Update"/gt
• ltchild
  href"http//software-depot.netscape.com/"
  name"Software Depot"/gt
• lt/Topicgtlt/childgt
• ltchild
  href"http//home.netscape.com/search/index.html"
  name"Search"/gt

Note this has been edited slightly
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RDF Browser Support (2)

• Mozilla also provides RDF support for
• History list
• Bookmarks (illustrated)
• File store
• Can also link to third party RDF schemas
• One RDF application uses link information (from
  AltaVista) to give a map of the most popular
  resources linking to the site you're visiting.

Applications End user navigation Collaborative
tools Robots Software agents
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Using RDF
http//www.ibm.com/java/

• IBM's Java Central Station is a central
  repository of information about Java applications
  on the Web.
• The robot software stores all information in RDF

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Creating RDF - Reggie
http//metadata.net/dstc/

• Reggie is a generic metadata editing tool which
  processes a schema definition file.
• It supports a number of metadata schemes
  including Dublin Core, GILS, EDNA and AGLS.
• Output can be in HTML 2.0, HTML 4.0 or RDF
  formats.
• Reggie is a Java tool.

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Creating RDF - PrismEd

• Andrew Waugh, CSIRO gave paper at WWW 7 on
  "Specifying Metadata Standards for Metadata Tool
  Configuration"
• Paper described costs of creating metadata and
  proposed reducing costs by using a generic
  metadata editor.

The PrismEd Java editor demonstrates these
principles
See his paper at ltURL http//www.mel.dit.csiro.a
u8080/ajw/PrismEd/268.htmlgt
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Creating RDF - XML for RDF
http//www.alphaworks.ibm.com/formula/rdfxml

• IBM's RDF For XML tool is described as "a Java
  implementation of the RDF specification for
  creating technologies that search for data and
  describe, categorize, rate, and otherwise
  manipulate the data"

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Creating RDF - DC-Dot

• UKOLN's DC-Dot tool for creating Dublin Core
  metadata is being developed with a new user
  interface.
• DC-Dot supports RDF as an output format

The original interface is available
athttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcdot/ The
image above shows the new (unreleased) interface
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RDF Developments

• Roadmap For RDF In Mozilla
• Following suggestions made
• Z39.50 backend parser
• MARC parser
• LDAP to be completed
• Support for local filestore
• Netscape cache
• See Roadmap from ltURL http//www.mozilla.org/rdf/
  doc/gt

13
Issues

• Models for RDF Authoring Tools
• Dedicated applications
• Add-on to commercial authoring tools
• Automated Creation of RDF
• Avoid file-based approach
• Use automated tools to create RDF
• Creation of Schemas
• How many schemas?
• Granularity of schemas?
• Timeliness
• Are the specs stable?
• Is it timely?