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The big question for many researchers in the area of educational systems now is what is the next step in the evolution of e-learning? Are we finally moving from a scattered intelligence to a coherent space of collaborative intelligence? How close we are to the vision of the Educational Semantic Web and what do we need to do in order to realize it? Two main challenges can be seen in this direction: on the one hand, to achieve interoperability among various educational systems and on the other hand, to have automated, structured and unified authoring support for their creation. In the spirit of the Semantic Web a key to enabling the interoperability is to capitalize on the (1) semantic conceptualization and ontologies, (2) common standardized communication syntax, and (3) large-scale service-based integration of educational content and functionality provision and usage.

This document is designed as being a simple but comprehensive introductory publication for anybody trying to get into the Semantic Web: from beginners through to long time hackers. Recommended pre-reading: the Semantic Web in Breadth.

ASWC 2008 will present the latest research and development of the Semantic Web and its related technologies. It will include a Research Track, a Semantic Web in Use Track, a Poster and Demonstration Track.

In September's edition of the Semantic Web Gang, regular members are joined by three guests to discuss the investment potential of the Semantic Web and semantic technologies. With continuing investment in (and acquisition of) companies for whom semantic technologies are a key part of their proposition, we explore the extent to which investors are interested in 'semantic technology' per se, and look at recent investments from Union Square Ventures to illustrate the wider discussion. A number of entrants to this year's TechCrunch 50 event feature a semantic technology focus, and we also look at these with the help of Union Square's Brad Burnham, TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld, and VentureBeat's Chris Morrison.

In this paper it is presented our contribution for carrying out adaptive and intelligent Web-based Education Systems (WBES) that take into account the individual student learning requirements, by means of a holistic architecture and Framework for developing WBES. In addition, three basic modules of the proposed WBES are outlined: an Authoring tool, a Semantic Web-based Evaluation, and a Cognitive Maps-based Student Model. As well, it is stated a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) oriented to deploy reusable, accessible, durable and interoperable services. The approach enhances the Learning Technology Standard Architecture, proposed by IEEE-LTSA (Learning Technology System Architecture) [IEEE 1484.1/D9 LTSA (2001). Draft standard for learning technology - learning technology systems architecture (LTSA). New York, USA. URL: http://ieee.ltsc.org/wg1], and the Sharable Content Object Reusable Model (SCORM), claimed by Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) [Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (2004). URL: http://www.adlnet.org].

Second Brazilian Workshop on Semantic Web and Education Second Brazilian Workshop on Semantic Web and Education held in Fortaleza, Brazil, joint with the XIX Brazilian Symposium on Informatics and Education (SBIE) http://www.grow.ic.ufal.br/events/WSWEd2008.en

The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation. The following is an archive of some of the publications or interviews that were published by the W3C Staff.

Motivation Educational Systems are gradually incorporating Semantic Web technology. The general purpose is to make the Web more understandable by machines and then generate educational systems that are more adaptable and intelligent.

"Many languages are in serious danger of being lost and if nothing is done to prevent it, half of the world's approximately 6,500 languages will disappear in the next 100 years. Language data are central to the research of a large social science community, including linguists, anthropologists, archeologists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists interested in the culture of indigenous people. The death of a language entails the loss of a community's traditional culture, for the language is a unique vehicle for its traditions and culture. In this paper, we describe the effort undertaken at Wayne State University to preserve endangered languages using the state-of-the-art information technologies. We discuss the issues involved in such an effort, and present the architecture of a distributed digital library which will contain various data of endangered languages in the forms of text, image, video and audio files and include advanced tools for intelligent cataloguing, indexing, searching and browsing information on languages and language analysis. Various Semantic Web technologies such as XML, OLAC, and ontologies are used so that the digital library is developed as a useful linguistic resource on the Semantic Web."

This Wiki contains a collection of tool references that can help in developing Semantic Web applications. These include complete development environments, editors, libraries or modules for various programming languages, specialized browsers, etc. The goal is to list such tools and not Semantic Web applications in general (the interested reader may consider looking at the W3C SW Use Case Collection for those.) The tool content of this wiki is still to be maintained by the community and not by the W3C staff. If you are interested to add and/or modify the relevant pages, please consult the separate Tool Contributors' page

"Earlier this month, I wrote about the Higher Education sector's interest in the opportunities presented by use of semantic technologies. Today I published a podcast with Thanassis Tiropanis, project manager for the recently finished SemTech report and co-organiser of a workshop on Semantic Web applications for learning and teaching which takes place in Nice on 30 September."

"A place for anything related to K-12 and higher education applications of the semantic web."

"The Disco - Hyperdata Browser is a simple browser for navigating the Semantic Web. The browser renders all information, that it can find on the Semantic Web about a specific resource, as an HTML page. This resource description contains hyperlinks that allow you to navigate between resources. While you move from resource to resource, the browser dynamically retrieves information by dereferencing HTTP URIs and by following rdfs:seeAlso links."

"DBpedia is a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web. DBpedia allows you to ask sophisticated queries against Wikipedia, and to link other data sets on the Web to Wikipedia data."

"Intro to the Semantic Web, LITA Social Software Showcase 2009"

"Semantic Web Landscape 2009"

"The Semantic Web & Social Software"

"The fourth of July holiday is upon us. And this year, why not celebrate democracy by checking out the open source project GovTrack.us, a site where you can follow the status of federal legislation and members of Congress? The government, of course, puts lots of data about the activities of the U.S. Congress on the web. THOMAS, for example, provides legislative information from the Library of Congress. But much of the time, the user interfaces to sites like this are less than optimal, and the data in each exists in its own individual silo. GovTrack.us is one graduate student's attempt to change the experience when it comes to getting information on pending legislation (and about a decade's worth of historical data on the topic), both in terms of a more accessible interface and pulling together data on the topic from multiple government sources. "

"Mainstream businesses increasingly are taking the semantic web seriously. Consider the U.K. Governments Technology Program's Market Blended Insight (MBI) project. While funded under that program as a three-year applied research project, it includes as part of its consortium the marketing departments of ParcelForce Worldwide, British Gas Business, AXA, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank (NAGE), 3M and pH Group. Having these partners on board helps ensure that the work it is doing to help companies improve their marketing activities has application in real-world scenarios. "

Vic's compendium of software that supports knowledge management and information organisation in graphical form. Includes mind mappers, concept mappers, outliners, hierarchical organisers, KM support and knowledge browsers, 2D and 3D. The opinions are Vic's but material in quotes that follows "What they say" is quoted from the vendors' web sites. Product names used in this web site are for identification purposes only and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Please let me know of any software that isn't here but should be: Vic at the above domain.