12.1.10. Introduction to OWL

The basic knowledge that should be possessed before learning ¶

Before you learn OWL, you should have a basic understanding of XML, XML namespaces, and RDF.

If you learn these projects first, please visit:

For the rookie course. XML 教程 And RDF 教程 .

What is OWL? ¶

• OWL refers to the web ontology language.

• OWL is built on top of RDF

• OWL is used to process information on web

• OWL is designed to be interpreted by computers.

• OWL is not designed for human reading.

• OWL is written by XML

• OWL has three sublanguages.

• OWL is a web standard

What is Noumenon? ¶

The term “Noumenon” comes from philosophy. It is a science that studies the various entities in the world and how they are related.

For web, ontology is about the accurate description of the relationship between web information and web information.

Why use OWL? ¶

OWL is part of the semantic Web Vision-the goal is:

• Web information has an exact meaning

• Web information can be understood and processed by computers.

• Computers can integrate information from Web

OWL is designed for computers to process information ¶

OWL is designed to provide a general way to process the content of Web information (rather than displaying it).

OWL is designed to be read by computer applications (not by humans).

OWL is different from RDF. ¶

OWL has many similarities with RDF, but OWL is a more powerful language with stronger machine interpretation than RDF.

OWL has a larger vocabulary and a more powerful language than RDF.

OWL sublanguage ¶

OWL has three sub-languages:

• OWL Lite

• OWL DL (including OWL Lite)

• OWL Full (including OWL DL)

OWL is written in XML ¶

XML,OWL information can be exchanged between different types of computers using different types of operating systems and application languages.

OWL is a Web standard ¶

OWL became a W3C recommendation in February 2004.

W3C recommendation (standard) is regarded as web standard by industry and web community. The W3C recommendation is a stable specification developed by the W3C working group and reviewed by W3C members.

The document about OWL in W3C: http://www.w3.org/2004/OWL/