Learning Path: Semantic Web Fundamentals

RDF Basics

  • Triple structure: Subject-Predicate-Object
  • URIs as identifiers: How resources are named
  • Literals vs Resources: Data values vs things
  • Serialization formats: Turtle (most readable), RDF/XML, JSON-LD
  • Exercise: Describe yourself and 3 relationships in Turtle

2. Namespaces & Vocabularies

  • Prefixes: Shorthand for long URIs (rdf:, rdfs:, skos:)
  • Common vocabularies: Dublin Core, FOAF, Schema.org
  • Exercise: Create your own namespace and vocabulary

3. RDFS Essentials

  • Classes: rdfs:Class, rdfs:subClassOf
  • Properties: rdfs:Property, rdfs:domain, rdfs:range
  • Labels: rdfs:label, rdfs:comment
  • Exercise: Model a simple domain (e.g., library with books, authors, genres)

4. SKOS for Organization

  • Concepts: skos:Concept, skos:ConceptScheme
  • Labels: skos:prefLabel, skos:altLabel
  • Relationships: skos:broader, skos:narrower, skos:related
  • Exercise: Build a 3-level taxonomy with multilingual labels

5. OWL (Optional Advanced)

  • Only if needed: Property characteristics, restrictions, inference
  • Start simple: Equivalence, disjointness
  • Exercise: Add logical constraints to your RDFS model

Tools to Try

  • Protégé: Visual ontology editor
  • RDF Playground: Online Turtle editor
  • SPARQL: Query language (learn after understanding triples)