Web Ontology Language (OWL) Guide W3C Working Draft 4 November 2002

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Web Ontology Language (OWL)
Guide Version 1.0

W3C Working Draft 4 November 2002

   This version:
          http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-owl-guide-20021104/

   Latest version:
          http://www.w3.org/TR/owl-guide/

   Previous version:
          none

   Authors:
          Michael K. Smith, Electronic Data Systems,
          michael.smith@eds.com
          Deborah McGuinness, Stanford University, dlm@ksl.stanford.edu
          Raphael Volz, Forschungszentrum Informatik (FZI), volz@fzi.de
          Chris Welty, IBM Research, welty@us.ibm.com

   Copyright ©2002 W3C^® (MIT, INRIA, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C
   liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules
apply.
     _________________________________________________________________

Abstract

   The World Wide Web as it is currently constituted resembles a poorly
   mapped geography. Our insight into the documents and capabilities
   available are based on keyword searches, abetted by clever use of
   document connectivity and usage patterns. The sheer mass of this data
   is unmanageable without powerful tool support. In order to map this
   terrain more precisely, computational agents require machine-readable
   descriptions of the content and capabilities of web accessible
   resources. These descriptions must be in addition to the
   human-readable versions of that information.

   The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is intended to provide a language
that
   can be used to describe the classes and relations between them that
   are inherent in Web documents and applications.

   This document demonstrates the use of the OWL language to
    1. formalize a domain by defining classes and properties of those
       classes,
    2. define individuals and assert properties about them, and
    3. reason about these classes and individuals to the degree
permitted
       by the formal semantics of the OWL language.

   The sections are organized to present an incremental definition of a
   set of classes, properties and individuals, beginning with the
   fundamentals and proceeding to more complex language components.
     _________________________________________________________________

Status of this Document

   This section describes the status of this document as of its 4 Nov
   2002 publication. Other documents may supersede this document. This
is
   a W3C Working Draft for review by W3C members and other interested
   parties. It is a draft document and may be updated, replaced, or
   obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use
   W3C Working Drafts as reference materials or to cite them as other
   than "work in progress." A list of current W3C Recommendations and
   other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/. 

   This draft represents the working group's efforts to date, starting
in
   roughly the direction of the DAML+OIL walkthru, but with more
   realistic and elaborate examples. It has undergone considerable
review
   in the working group, but further work is anticipated, espcially with
   respect to remaining open issues.

   Comments on this document should be sent to
   public-webont-comments@w3.org, a mailing list with a public archive.
   General discussion of related technology is welcome in www-rdf-logic.

   See also patent disclosures related to this work.

   This document has been produced as part of the W3C Semantic Web
   Activity (Activity Statement) following the procedures set out for
the
   W3C Process. The document has been written by the Web Ontology
Working
   Group. The goals of the Web Ontology working group are discussed in
   the Web Ontology Working Group charter.
     _________________________________________________________________

                                   Contents

     * Abstract
     * Contents
     * Introduction
          + The Species of OWL
          + Structure of the Document
     * The Structure of Ontologies
          + Namespaces 
          + Ontology Headers
     * Basic Definitions
          + Simple Classes and Individuals
               o Defining Simple Hierarchical Named Classes 
               o Defining Individuals 
               o Design for Use
          + Simple Properties 
               o Defining Properties 
               o Properties and Datatypes
               o Properties of Individuals
          + Property Characteristics
          + Property Restrictions
               o allValuesFrom, someValuesFrom 
               o Cardinality 
               o hasValue
     * Ontology Mapping 
          + sameClassAs, samePropertyAs
          + sameIndividualAs 
          + differentIndividualFrom 
     * Complex Classes
          + Set Operators
          + Enumerated Classes
          + Disjoint Classes
     * Usage Examples
          + Wine Portal
          + Wine Agent
     * Acknowledgements
     * References
     * Appendix A: XML + RDF Basics
     * Appendix B: History
     * Appendix C: An Alternate Region Ontology
     _________________________________________________________________


Acknowledgements

   This document represents the work of many people, in particular the
   members of the W3C Web Ontology Working Group. Appendix B was
   contributed by Guus Schreiber, University of Amsterdam,
   schreiber@swi.psy.uva.nl. Substantial insight was provided by the
   DAML+OIL Walkthru. Jeremy Carroll, Jeff Heflin, Leo Obrst, and Peter
   F. Patel-Schneider provided helpful reviews. At the WG Face to Face,
   October 8, 2002, Stephen Buswell, Ruediger Klein, Enrico Motta, and
   Evan Wallace provided a detailed review of the ontology resulting in
   substantial changes.


-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/

Received on Friday, 8 November 2002 11:50:38 UTC