Editing Web Ontology Language (section)

{{Short description|Family of knowledge representation languages}}
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{{Stack|{{Infobox technology standard
| title             = OWL Web Ontology Language
| status            = Published
| year_started      = 2004
| editors           = Mike Dean ([[BBN Technologies]]), Guus Schreiber
| base_standards    = [[Resource Description Framework]], [[RDFS]]
| related_standards = [[SHACL]]
| abbreviation      = OWL
| domain            = [[Semantic Web]]
| website           = [https://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/ OWL Reference]
}}|
{{Infobox technology standard
| title             = OWL 2 Web Ontology Language
| status            = Published
| year_started      = 2009
| editors           = W3C OWL Working Group
| base_standards    = Resource Description Framework, RDFS
| related_standards =
| abbreviation      = OWL 2
| domain            = Semantic Web
| website           = [https://www.w3.org/TR/owl2-overview/ OWL 2 Overview]
}}
}}
The '''Web Ontology Language''' ('''OWL''') is a family of [[Knowledge representation and reasoning|knowledge representation]] languages for authoring [[Ontology (information science)|ontologies]]. Ontologies are a formal way to describe [[Taxonomy|taxonomies]] and classification networks, essentially defining the structure of knowledge for various domains: the nouns representing classes of objects and the verbs representing relations between the objects.

Ontologies resemble [[class hierarchies]] in [[object-oriented programming]] but there are several critical differences. Class hierarchies are meant to represent structures used in source code that evolve fairly slowly (perhaps with monthly revisions) whereas ontologies are meant to represent information on the Internet and are expected to be evolving almost constantly. Similarly, ontologies are typically far more flexible as they are meant to represent information on the Internet coming from all sorts of heterogeneous data sources. Class hierarchies on the other hand tend to be fairly static and rely on far less diverse and more structured sources of data such as corporate databases.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.w3.org/2001/sw/BestPractices/SE/ODSD/ |title=A Semantic Web Primer for Object-Oriented Software Developers |last1=Knublauch |first1=Holger |last2=Oberle |first2=Daniel |last3=Tetlow |first3=Phil |last4=Wallace |first4=Evan |date=March 9, 2006 |website=[[W3C]] |access-date=November 19, 2017}}</ref>

The OWL languages are characterized by [[Semantics (computer science)|formal semantics]]. They are built upon the [[World Wide Web Consortium]]'s (W3C) standard for objects called the [[Resource Description Framework]] (RDF).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.w3.org/TR/owl2-overview/ |title=OWL 2 Web Ontology Language Document Overview (Second Edition) |date=11 December 2012 |website=[[W3C]]}}</ref> OWL and RDF have attracted significant academic, medical and commercial interest.

In October 2007,<ref name="timelinehistory">{{cite web|url=http://www.dblab.ntua.gr/~bikakis/XML%20and%20Semantic%20Web%20W3C%20Standards%20Timeline-History.pdf |title=XML and Semantic Web W3C Standards Timeline
}}</ref> a new W3C working group<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/2007/OWL |title=OWL |website=W3.org |access-date=2017-02-23}}</ref> was started to extend OWL with several new features as proposed in the OWL 1.1 member submission.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Submission/2006/10/ |title=Submission Request to W3C: OWL 1.1 Web Ontology Language |publisher=W3C |date=2006-12-19 }}</ref> W3C announced the new version of OWL on 27 October 2009.<ref name="w3.org">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/2009/10/owl2-pr |title=W3C Standard Facilitates Data Management and Integration |publisher=W3.org |date=2009-10-27 |access-date=15 October 2013}}</ref> This new version, called OWL 2, soon found its way into semantic editors such as [[Protégé (software)|Protégé]] and [[semantic reasoner]]s such as Pellet,<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Sirin | first1 = E. | last2 = Parsia | first2 = B. | last3 = Grau | first3 = B. C. | last4 = Kalyanpur | first4 = A. | last5 = Katz | first5 = Y. | title = Pellet: A practical OWL-DL reasoner | url = http://pellet.owldl.com/papers/sirin05pellet.pdf | doi = 10.1016/j.websem.2007.03.004 | journal = Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web | volume = 5 | issue = 2 | pages = 51–53 | year = 2007 | s2cid = 101226 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070627202215/http://pellet.owldl.com/papers/sirin05pellet.pdf | archive-date = 2007-06-27 }}</ref> RacerPro,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.racer-systems.com/ |title=RACER - Home |website=Racer-systems.com |access-date=2017-02-23}}</ref> FaCT++<ref>{{Cite book | last1 = Tsarkov | first1 = D. | last2 = Horrocks | first2 = I. | chapter = FaCT++ Description Logic Reasoner: System Description | doi = 10.1007/11814771_26 | chapter-url = http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ian.horrocks/Publications/download/2006/TsHo06a.pdf| title = Automated Reasoning | series = Lecture Notes in Computer Science | volume = 4130 | pages = 292–297 | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-3-540-37187-8 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.65.2672 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://code.google.com/p/factplusplus/ |title=Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting |website=Code.google.com |access-date=2017-02-23}}</ref> and HermiT.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hermit-reasoner.com/ |title=Home |publisher=HermiT Reasoner |access-date=2017-02-23}}</ref>

The OWL family contains many species, serializations, syntaxes and specifications with similar names. OWL and OWL2 are used to refer to the 2004 and 2009 specifications, respectively. Full species names will be used, including specification version (for example, OWL2 EL). When referring more generally, ''OWL Family'' will be used.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Berners-Lee|first=Tim|author2=James Hendler|author3=Ora Lassila|title=The Semantic Web A new form of Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities|journal=Scientific American|date=May 17, 2001|url=http://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/LBSC690/SemanticWeb.html|doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0501-34|volume=284|issue=5|pages=34–43|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130424071228/http://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/LBSC690/SemanticWeb.html|archive-date=April 24, 2013|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | title=Semantic Web Programming | author=John Hebeler | isbn=978-0-470-41801-7 | date=April 13, 2009 | publisher=Wiley | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780470418017 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Segaran|first1=Toby|last2=Evans|first2=Colin|last3=Taylor|first3=Jamie|title=Programming the Semantic Web|date=July 24, 2009|publisher=O'Reilly Media|isbn=978-0-596-15381-6}}</ref>