Category:IAOA SWAO

Mission Statement

The role that ontologies play or can play in designing and employing semantic technologies has been widely acknowledged by the Semantic Web and Linked Data communities. But the level of collaboration between these communities and the Applied Ontology community has been much less than expected.

These communities actually share many common goals, common technologies, and a common interest in well-engineered applied ontologies. Many of those in the Applied Ontology community promote and use Semantic Web technologies and reasoning methods in everyday practice; similarly, many in the Semantic Web community advocate more rigorous and principled ontologies based on ontological analysis. All the communities share the need for a common semantic understanding and a formal representation of the domain at hand. The Semantic Web, Linked Data, and Big Data communities also have challenges to do with large scale applications and linking of vast heterogeneous data, so these communities also have different foci.

The Semantic Web Applied Ontology (SWAO) Special Interest Group is established to bring all perspectives to the table, thus creating a forum for the multiple communities to work collaboratively in tackling common problems. All are welcome to participate regardless of membership or affiliation.