Top 4 Activities for Kickstarting Semantic Web/Linked Data Initiative

If you have been wondering on steps required to kick-start semantic web/linked data initiative within your team or organization, following are some of the key considerations you would want to take into account:

• Building the right team: One of the most important challenge in starting on semantic web/linked data initiative is to get your team ready with right concepts and experience in place. Following are some key considerations in relation with building the right team:
  • Identify people in the organization getting upto speed with linked data technologies such as RDF, OWL etc.
  • Hire business analysts and engineers experienced in developing ontology frameworks such as Ontology Development Metamodel (ODM).
  • Consider augmenting staff from boutique consultancies who has experiences working with ontology frameworks.
• Laying out Standards: This is one of the critical steps towards developing practices in Semantic Web/Linked Data. The idea is to come up with domain and linked data standards for internal glossaries and dictionaries. In this relation, one may look out for industry semantic standards driven by large organizations in financial services, lifesciences, healthcare, library sciences, defense and government.
• Incorporating Linked Data Technologies into Projects: Following are some of the key things one can do to start incorporating linked data technologies into various projects:
  • New Web Application Projects: For new web application projects, it may be a good idea to build and use domain-specific glossaries (for example, FIBO or XBRL, GL). The key is to assure compliance with ontological standards and linked data technologies, and adapt industry standard glossaries for internal use.
  • Big Data Projects: For big data projects, one can adopt well-defined vocabularies and ontologies that derive from industry ontologies and linked data standards. Whenever possible, one would want to use vocabularies designed for, and used by, small groups and communities (for example, business partners or suppliers).
• Training: The idea is to conduct regular training in various Linked data technologies such as RDF, OWL, ODM etc.