The visual semantic web: unifying human and machine semantic web representations with object-process methodology
Dov Dori · International Semantic Web Conference · 2003
The Visual Semantic Web (ViSWeb) paradigm enhances human accessibility to the current Semantic Web technology by enabling the visualization of knowledge. Arguing against the claim that humans and machines need to look at different knowledge representation formats, Object-Process Methodology (OPM) is shown to enable modeling of systems in a single graphic and textual model. ViSWeb provides for representation of knowledge over the Web in a unified way that caters to humans as well as machines. ViSWeb is developed as an OPM-based layer on top of XML/RDF/OWL to express knowledge visually and in natural language. Both the graphic and the textual representations are strictly equivalent. Being intuitive yet formal, they are not only understandable to humans, but are also amenable to computer processing. The advantages of the ViSWeb approach include equivalent graphic-text knowledge representation, visual navigability, semantic sentence interpretation, specification of system dynamics, and complexity management. The ability to use such bimodal knowledge representation that is both human understandable and machine processable is a major step forward in the evolution of the Semantic Web.