Challenges for a Semantic Web
Kim Veltman,
Cultivate Interactive,
Jul 22, 2002
This paper isn't particularly deep, but it makes a really important point: the semantic web will be culturally relative. That is to say, there will not be one semantics represented (that is, there will not be one set of meanings and entities), but rather, there will be a multiplicity of semantics. As the author notes, "in the cultural sector local, regional and national variants are essential to the richness of cultural expression, and depend fundamentally on different languages and dialects. Thus a semantic web, which includes cultural, spatial (local, regional, national, global), historical and interpretative dimensions is one of the essential challenges that face us in the future." This is something that educational metadata standards writers have yet to face (and that they, for the most part, vigorously oppose when I put it to them). But it is inescapable.
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