The word 'semantic' is charged with meaning, no pun intended. This weblog will attempt to discern its meaning in relation to this project, and describe some of the implications. Yes, it is a buzz word that people use in a wide variety of contexts, and SODA likely adds to this feeling of word-overuse and overall confusion. But in the end, it is just a word, and we feel this word does capture the spirit of this project, and have decided to use it!
Through SODA's ontology, we are providing a standardized way of representing datasets. SODA ontology has a direct translation to the online data that his holds, so a system should be able to process this ontology and be able to query from that data source, through SODA. The encoding of these data sources, using it's metadata, also provides the semantic seach tools, like Swoogle, to search for these online datasets with greater accuracy.
Meaning can be better interpreted by a machine if it can classify and "understand" the metadata that is being processed. The semantic web aims to provide a contents for these realms of possible meanings so that machines can make "good" decisions. More metadata, more chance of a better decision. Visit the metadata section of the SODA Handbook for see the metadata tracked and handled.
We should also mention that we like the acronym SODA, which can lead to new tools such as SODA-POP and Cream-SODA.
More to be added over time...
