Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL [Paperback]

Dean Allemang (Author), James Hendler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0123735564 | ISBN-13: 978-0123735560 | Publication Date: May 9, 2008 | Edition: 1

The promise of the Semantic Web to provide a universal medium to exchange data information and knowledge has been well publicized. There are many sources too for basic information on the extensions to the WWW that permit content to be expressed in natural language yet used by software agents to easily find, share and integrate information. Until now individuals engaged in creating ontologies-- formal descriptions of the concepts, terms, and relationships within a given knowledge domain-- have had no sources beyond the technical standards documents.

Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist transforms this information into the practical knowledge that programmers and subject domain experts need. Authors Allemang and Hendler begin with solutions to the basic problems, but don't stop there: they demonstrate how to develop your own solutions to problems of increasing complexity and ensure that your skills will keep pace with the continued evolution of the Semantic Web.

. Provides practical information for all programmers and subject matter experts engaged in modeling data to fit the requirements of the Semantic Web.
. De-emphasizes algorithms and proofs, focusing instead on real-world problems, creative solutions, and highly illustrative examples.
. Presents detailed, ready-to-apply "recipes" for use in many specific situations.
. Shows how to create new recipes from RDF, RDFS, and OWL constructs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Missing Link: Hendler and Allemang's new book is exactly what our industry is looking for. We have many introductory books, and some compilations of papers but very little to help a practitioner move up their experience curve from novice to journeyman ontologist. The book is very readable; the examples are plentiful and easily understandable. I've already been recommending students and clients pre-order this book" - David McComb, President, Semantic Arts, Inc. www.semanticarts.com

"This is by far the best introduction to the semantic web currently available, from a practitioner's point of view. There are meaty examples that move beyond the theory and hype. You will get a clear understanding of what RDF, RDF Schema and OWL are all about - both in terms of what they are and how to use them. You will learn a variety of hard-nosed and hard-won practical guidelines gained from years of experience building and deploying ontologies "in the trenches"? Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist fills a much needed gap in the literature. It represents an impressive collection and synthesis of a wide variety of sources that have hitherto been scattered among academic books and papers, W3C working group notes, talks, blogs and email discussion groups. I expect to refer to this book often." - Dr. Michael Uschold, Internationally recognized expert in ontologies and semantic web technologies both in academia and industry.

"At the time when the world needs to find consensus on a wide range of subjects, publication of this book carries special importance. Crossing over East-West cultural differences, I hope semantic web technology contributes to bridge different ontologies and helps build the foundation for consensus towards the global community." - Toru Ishida, Department of Social Informatics, Kyoto University Yoshida-Honmachi

"Despite all the excitement about the Semantic Web, the principles of actually using Semantic Web standards to create useful applications have been buried in tedious documents and e-mail threads. This volume-written by two leaders in the Semantic Web community who represent perfectly the academic and the industrial perspective-makes the arcane knowledge needed to build intelligent Web applications accessible and understandable. This is a great introduction to the Semantic Web and its associated knowledge-representation standards. More important, the book shows how to use the standards, and does so in a lively and lucid way." - Mark A. Musen, Professor of Medicine and Computer Science, Stanford University; Director, the National Center for Biomedical Ontology; Director, the Protégé Project

"Semantics are no longer contained to the realm of theorists but are now being applied to help large leaning-forward organizations wrestle with information discovery and reuse. Here is a practical guide written for those who are seeking insight on techniques for real-world applications." - Andrew Schain, Visiting researcher, Maryland Information and Network Dynamtics Laboratory

About the Author

Dean Allemang is the chief scientist at TopQuadrant, Inc.-the first company in the United States devoted to consulting, training, and products for the Semantic Web. He co-developed (with Professor Hendler) TopQuadrant's successful Semantic Web training series, which he has been delivering on a regular basis since 2003. He has served as an invited expert on numerous international review boards, including a review of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute-the world's largest Semantic Web research institute - and the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a collaboration between 10 pharmaceutical companies and the European Commission to set the roadmap for the pharmaceutical industry for the near future.

Jim Hendler is the Tetherless World Senior Constellation Chair at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and has authored over 200 technical papers in the areas of artificial intelligence, Semantic Web, agent-based computing, and web science. One of the early developers of the Semantic Web, he is the Editor-in-Chief emeritus of IEEE Intelligent Systems and is the first computer scientist to serve on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science. In 2010, he was chosen as one of the 20 most innovative professors in America by Playboy magazine, Hendler currently serves as an "Internet Web Expert" for the U.S. government, providing guidance to the Data.gov project.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (May 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0123735564
• ISBN-13: 978-0123735560
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #598,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, a good textbook, June 22, 2009

By 

David C. Hay "Dave" (Houston, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL (Paperback)

There are maybe half a dozen or so books in my library that have defined the body of knowledge that has been the subject of my career. All the others are interesting (or not) but not the definitive description of the subject. It is very rare when a new one comes along. But when one does succinctly and clearly define and describe a subject area I have been struggling to master for several years, this is worth celebrating.

This is such a book. For the last several years, I have been studying OWL and the Semantic Web, recognizing that there is something there that is important. But it's been a struggle to get on top of it. For example, the books I've found so far (and indeed, the OWL specification itself) describes the language in terms of XML. That's ok, and I was able to understand bits and pieces of it. And I did get the fundamental difference between semantic modeling as done in OWL and semantic modeling as I have been doing with entity/relationship modeling. But I never really felt comfortable that I "got it".

This book, however, very clearly starts at the beginning and takes the reader through the steps required to understand not just the languages involved, but why they are important and why they are significant to the Semantic Web. Indeed this is the first time I can say that I really understand the semantic web.

One of the reviews complains that the book doesn't go far enough. Perhaps not. But if you are looking for a place not just to start your education and to get a through grounding in fundamental concepts, this is the book for you.

I strongly recommend this book.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Semantic Web 101, July 3, 2008

By 

Jannes Aasman "Jans Aasman" (Oakland, California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL (Paperback)

Around 2003 I bought my first two books about the Semantic Web and RDF. The authors of these books managed to confuse me into believing that RDF is some XML standard for knowledge representation and they basically needed an entire book to explain how to force knowledge into XML. The technology looked so painful, ugly, and wrong that I quickly gave up. A year later I met someone who explained to me that RDF (and SW) is about serializing semantic networks into triples and that reading XML/RDF is actually only for masochists. Well, that was something I did understand and I've been playing and working with RDF even since.
The book by Dean and Jim is wonderful. XML/RDF is completely ignored and the book focuses on the things that you need to understand if you want to get into the Semantic Web. I'm recommending it to all our customers and I guess we real soon will need a second edition. I'm also looking forward to their next book: the Semantic Web for the Advanced Ontologist :-)

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been great, June 6, 2008

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C. Schumacher - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist: Effective Modeling in RDFS and OWL (Paperback)

There is a great need for a book like this, and the authors are well-credentialed, but unfortunately, this book is more like an introduction than a craftsman's resource. It reads like a first draft with typos, belabored repetitive text, and some odd examples. There is almost no discussion of internationalization, security, performance, or tricky basic types such as dates, times, or currency. More discussion of SPARQL would have been useful, as well as discussion of what should go in the model vs. what should be queried out. The chapter "Good and Bad Modeling Practices" was a particular let-down. A sharp, thoughtful, deeper book on this topic would really help the field.