Course Overview

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the new language for the Worldwide Web. It will never substitute HTML but can support it in an important aspect. While HTML was developed for the presentation of electronic documents for humans (human-human interaction), XML is especially suitable for the data communication between computers. XML thereby allows the definition of standards for data interchange formats and the combination and extension of them. In combination with the broad support in the business, XML achieved a wide distribution in the web. Applications of XML can be found today in XHTML, web services, semantic web and in e-business.

The lecture starts with an introduction to the Web 3.0 and the vision of the Semantic Web, followed by a detailed overview of technologies of the XML family of languages. Basics of Semantic Web technologies like RDF and SPARQL will be then outlined followed by Linked Data principles. The course will then introduce ontologies and their formal languages as well as ontology engineering methodologies, semantic annotation, and ontology matching. The course will conclude with an overview of Web Service technologies and concrete applications in the area.

Literature 

• P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph, Y. Sure: "Semantic Web - Grundlagen" (in German). Springer eXamen.press, 2008; ISBN 978-3-540-33994-6.  or  P. Hitzler, M. Krötzsch, S. Rudolph, Y. Sure: "Foundations of Semantic Web Technologies" (in English). Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2009; ISBN: 9781420090505 
• Tim Berners-Lee. Weaving the Web. Harper 1999 geb./2000 Taschenbuch. ISBN: 978-0062515872
• Siegfried Handschuh, Steffen Staab. Annotation for the Semantic Web. 2003 ISBN: 158603345X