Data sharing, aligning ontology, seamless data sharing across data silos: these are the promises of the semantic web. To date, we still do not have an operational theory of using linked open data tools for practical linking beyond abusing owl:sameAs statements (Halpin et al).
Are people really reusing other people’s ontologies and vocabularies or (re)creating their own? Do top-level ontologies really give you anything or are they table-top toys that do not scale to describing real world problems?
A review of the LOV website clearly shows that beyond core W3C vocabularies, little linkages are being made across vocabularies. Yet we know that this and more will be required if we expect data to scale. Ontologies are being implemented with OWL but is anyone actually using reasoning in production or are their ontologies just simple annotation databases?
This session is meant to swap stories about implementing vocabularies and sharing data in the field. Bring your coffee and tea and share your stories around the virtual triples campfire.
Halpin, Harry, et al. “When owl:sameAs isn’t the same: An analysis of identity in linked data.” The Semantic Web–ISWC 2010 (2010): 305-320.