3.1. Introduction
The chapter introduces the main concepts of interest in the context of data linking. We start by an overview of the Semantic Web.
3.1.1. The Semantic Web vision
With the advent of the World Wide Web (WWW), accessing information has become quicker and simpler via Web documents which are part of a “global search space”. In this version of the Web, knowledge is accessible by traversing hypertext links using Web browsers. In recent years, this global information space of connected documents is currently evolving into a global Web of data – the Semantic Web – where both data and documents are linked. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the WWW, defined the Semantic Web as “not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation” [BER 01].
The transition of the current document-oriented Web to a Web of interlinked data has...
