External semantic annotation of web-databases

Abstract

This paper presents a new solution for making existing web-databases accessible for semantic agents. Instead of adding semantic annotations to a page itself or publishing the content separately, the elements of a web-page are annotated and published in an external file, maybe even on an external site. A semantic agent can use these annotations like an instruction manual to find out how to interpret the page's content and how to access databases such as product catalogues, price lists or technical specifications for components. Since these annotations can be published separately from the actual page, anyone can annotate any website and make it accessible for semantic agents.