Editing Web Ontology Language (section)

===Semantic web standards===
{{Further|Semantic Web}}
{{blockquote|The Semantic Web provides a common framework that allows data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries.|World Wide Web Consortium|''W3C Semantic Web Activity''<ref name="semantic_web_activity">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/ |title=W3C Semantic Web Activity |author=World Wide Web Consortium |date=2010-02-06 |access-date=18 April 2010 }}</ref>}}

====RDF schema====
{{Further|RDFS}}
{{blockquote|a declarative representation language influenced by ideas from knowledge representation|World Wide Web Consortium|''Metadata Activity''<ref name="metadata.activity">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Metadata/Activity.html |title=Metadata Activity Statement |author=World Wide Web Consortium |date=2002-08-23 |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=20 April 2010 }}</ref>}}

In the late 1990s, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) ''Metadata Activity'' started work on [[RDFS|RDF Schema]] (RDFS), a language for [[Resource Description Framework|RDF]] vocabulary sharing. The RDF became a W3C [[web standards|Recommendation]] in February 1999, and RDFS a Candidate Recommendation in March 2000.<ref name="metadata.activity" /> In February 2001, the ''Semantic Web Activity'' replaced the Metadata Activity.<ref name="metadata.activity" /> In 2004 (as part of a wider revision of RDF) RDFS became a  W3C Recommendation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Metadata/Activity.html |title=RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema |author=World Wide Web Consortium |date=2002-08-23 | work=RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0 |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=20 April 2010 }}</ref>
Though RDFS provides some support for ontology specification, the need for a more expressive ontology language had become clear.<ref name="book:lacy:owl:c9">{{cite book |title=OWL: Representing Information Using the Web Ontology Language |last=Lacy |first=Lee W. |year=2005 |publisher=Trafford Publishing |location=Victoria, BC |isbn=978-1-4120-3448-7 |chapter=Chapter 9 - RDFS}}{{self-published source|date=January 2018}}</ref>{{Self-published inline|certain=yes|date=January 2018}}

====Web-Ontology Working Group====
{{blockquote|As of Monday, the 31st of May, our working group will officially come to an end. We have achieved all that we were chartered to do, and I believe our work is being quite well appreciated.|James Hendler and Guus Schreiber|''Web-Ontology Working Group: Conclusions and Future Work''<ref name="web-ont" />}}

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created the ''Web-Ontology Working Group'' as part of their Semantic Web Activity. It began work on November 1, 2001 with co-chairs James Hendler and Guus Schreiber.<ref name="web-ont">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/#L151 |publisher=W3C |title=Web-Ontology (WebOnt) Working Group (Closed) }}</ref> The first working drafts of the [[abstract syntax]], reference and synopsis were published in July 2002.<ref name="web-ont" /> OWL became a formal [[Web standards|W3C recommendation]] on February 10, 2004 and the working group was disbanded on May 31, 2004.<ref name="web-ont" />

====OWL Working Group====
In 2005, at the ''OWL Experiences And Directions Workshop'' a consensus formed that recent advances in description logic would allow a more expressive revision to satisfy user requirements more comprehensively whilst retaining good computational properties.
In December 2006, the OWL1.1 Member Submission<ref name="owl1.1">{{cite web |url=http://www.w3.org/Submission/2006/SUBM-owl11-overview-20061219/ |title=OWL 1.1 Web Ontology Language |last1=Patel-Schneider |first1=Peter F. |author-link1=Peter F. Patel-Schneider |last2=Horrocks |first2=Ian |date=2006-12-19 |publisher=World Wide Web Consortium |access-date=26 April 2010 }}</ref> was made to the W3C. The W3C chartered the ''OWL Working Group'' as part of the Semantic Web Activity in September 2007. In April 2008, this group decided to call this new language OWL2, indicating a substantial revision.<ref name="grau.2008">{{Cite journal | last1 = Grau | first1 = B. C.  | last2 = Horrocks | first2 = I. | author-link2 = Ian Horrocks| last3 = Motik | first3 = B. | last4 = Parsia | first4 = B. | last5 = Patel-Schneider | first5 = P. F. | last6 = Sattler | first6 = U. | author-link6 = Ulrike Sattler| doi = 10.1016/j.websem.2008.05.001 | title = OWL 2: The next step for OWL | journal = Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web | volume = 6 | issue = 4 | pages = 309–322 | year = 2008 | url = http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/boris.motik/pubs/ghmppss08next-steps.pdf}}</ref>

OWL 2 became a W3C recommendation in October 2009. OWL 2 introduces profiles to improve scalability in typical applications.<ref name="w3.org" /><ref name="owl2-profiles"/>