Key Things You Need to Know About RDF (and Why They are Important)

Resource Description Framework (RDF) is not "just another data format". It is fundamentally different from other common information representations such as XML or JSON. What makes it different? Why do these differences matter? Semantic web technologists frequently allude to several benefits that these differences provide. What are these claimed benefits? Are the claims justified? How exactly are these benefits enabled?

This presentation explains seven key benefits that RDF provides, which differentiate it from other common information representations. It also explains the specific technical characteristics of RDF that produce these benefits.

If you have ever thought that RDF might be right for your project, but you've struggled to explain why, to colleagues and managers who want solid reasons rather than opinions, this is the presentation for you.

David Booth is an independent consultant and senior software architect at both Hawaii Resource Group and Rancho BioSciences, using Semantic Web technology to make healthcare and biomedical data interoperable between diverse systems. He previously worked at KnowMED, using Semantic Web technology for healthcare quality-of-care and clinical outcomes measurement, and at PanGenX, applying Semantic Web technology to genomics in support of personalized medicine. Before that he worked on Cleveland Clinic's SemanticDB project, which uses RDF and other semantic technologies to perform cardiovascular research. Prior to that, he was a software architect at HP Software, where his primary focus was emerging technologies. He was a W3C Fellow from 2002 to 2005, where he worked on Web Services standards before becoming involved in Semantic Web technology. He has been programming for many years using a variety of programming languages and operating systems. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from UCLA.