BASES OF DATA, ONTOLOGIES AND SEMANTIC WEB

Module MODULO B:ONTOLOGIE E WEB SEMANTICO

According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the end of the course, will demonstrate:

knowledge and understanding: students will acquire knowledge concerning standard tools recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to semantically represent, reason on, and query information present on the Web.

Applying knowledge and understanding: students will be able to construct logic models concerning various application domains, also called web ontologies, applying the standard W3C technology together with data and information present on the Web. In addition, students will be able to use the most widespread automated reasoners to determine logic inferences regarding web ontologies already constructed and, therefore to deduce implicit information present in them.

Making judgements: students will be able to evaluate quality of ontologies and to choose adequate semantic web tools for knowledge representation and reasoning in various situations.

Communication skills: students will acquire adequate communication skills and appropriateness of expression when communicating questions concerning knowledge representation and reasoning on the Web, also in presence of non-expert interlocutors.

Learning skills: students will gain the skill of adapting knowledge learned to new contexts and to keep themselves up-to-date by consulting specialized sources in the ambit of the Semantic Web.

Lectures in which explanations of the principal notions and tools of the semantic Web are enriched with various examples and case studies, presented with the purpose of stimulating discussions in class and of facilitating the understanding of the topics.

Learning assessment may also be carried out on line, should the conditions require it.

No prerequisite required.

Mandatory.

Introduction to the Semantic Web: motivation, examples, hints at the semantic modelling method (ontologies) and at logic.

- Data model dati Resource Description Framework (RDF), hints at projects such as Facebook Open Graph Protocol, Google Graph, DBPedia.

- SPARQL language for querying RDF graphs and introduction to important SPARQL endpoints.

- RDF Schema language (hints at RDFS foundational and not foundational ontologies for the Digital Humanities).

- Web Ontology Language (OWL) 2 language, examples of foundational and not foundational ontologies for the Digital Humanities.

- Introduction to the Semantic Rule Language (SWRL), to description logics (logic theories permitting to express semantic web languages) and related inference tools. 

1. A semantic Web Primer (third edition). Grigoris Antoniou, Paul Groth, Frank van Harmelen, and Rinke Hoekstra, 2012. The MIT Press, Cambrigde, Massachusetts, London, England (pp. 288).

2. Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist (Third Edition). Dean Allemang and James Hendler and Fabien Gandon, 2020. Morgan and Claypool (pp. 510).

Texts have not to be studied entirely, they are intended as supports to lessons and slides.

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.

Software project on the arguments of the course. During the discussion of the project, on the exam date, students will be asked questions concerning the motivations behind some design choices in the design of the ontology and theoretical questions concerning contructs and operators that have been used. 

The project can be also developed in small groups of two or three persons. 

In this latter case the work developed by each participant must be well documented. 

The evaluation of the exam will take into account the mastery of arguments and of acquired skills, of linguistic accuracy and of lexical appropriateness, as well as the argumentative abilities of the candidate. 

Verification of learning can be carried out also in a telematic way, in case the situation would require it.  

1) What is SPARQL and how can be used? What does a CONSTRUCT query generates?

2) What is the use of the existential restriction?

3)  What is the use of the universal restriction?

4) What is the use of the restriction of cardinality?

5) What are SWRL rules? 

Concerning the specific developed project: 

    1. How have you obtained such inference? Is it possible to obtain the same result in another way?

    2. Explain the construction of a specific hierarchy of classes.

    3. Which foundational ontologies have you used in your project?