South-East European Research Centre (SEERC)

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 semantic web is needed by the scientific and business community for more efficient information access and analysis (machine readable and understandable), to provide a common data representation and definition framework, facilitate integrating multiple sources and increase the utility of information by explicitly connecting it to its definition and context. Today explicit and tacit knowledge is stored in multimedia files as unstructured and semi structured data. A knowledge system retrieves, captures, and represents knowledge from all these files and types of data. A semantic web based knowledge management system acquires, organises, processes, shares and uses the knowledge embedded in multimedia content and unstructured data and maximises automation of the complete knowledge lifecycle. A major application of such systems is the integration and management of digital content and the integration of digital heritage resources. Semantic web based knowledge systems will enable the heritage sector to make its information available in meaningful ways to researchers and the general public.