15 Years of Semantic Web: An Incomplete Survey

Abstract

It has been 15 years since the first publications proposed the use of ontologies as a basis for defining information semantics on the Web starting what today is known as the Semantic Web Research Community. This work undoubtedly had a significant influence on AI as a field and in particular the knowledge representation and Reasoning Community that quickly identified new challenges and opportunities in using Description Logics in a practical setting. In this survey article, we will try to give an overview of the developments the field has gone through in these 15 years. We will look at three different aspects: the evolution of Semantic Web Language Standards, the evolution of central topics in the Semantic Web Community and the evolution of the research methodology.