The Cambridge Semantic Web Meetup Group

1. Overview

We have witnessed over the years the progression from basic machine languages, to higher-level procedural languages, and then to object-oriented languages. Each advance introduced dramatic improvements in software capabilities that resulted in major leaps forward in fulfilling information technology requirements.

We are again on the verge of another major advance in the evolution of software technology that may bring great value to organizations and other information technology beneficiaries.

With the Web 2.0, ontologies are being used to improve search capabilities and make inferences for improved human or computer reasoning. By relating terms in an ontology, the user doesn’t need to know the exact term actually stored in the document. Data Rationalization is a Managed Meta Data Environment (MME) enabled application which creates/extends an ontology for a domain into the structured data world, based on model objects stored in various models (of varying levels of detail, across model files and modeling tools) and other meta data.

Semantic Technologies have much to offer today’s successful business, with regulatory, operational and economic forces combining to require that timely and accurate data from across the enterprise be available on demand and at the point of need. Clear benefits are often disguised, though, by obscure language, serious misconceptions about what ‘the Semantic Web’ could or should be, and an unfortunate tendency to advocate ‘semantic technology’ per se rather than specific solutions to tangible business problems.