Magpie – Towards a Semantic Web Browser

Abstract

Abstract. Web browsing involves two tasks: finding the right web page and then making sense of its content. So far, research has focused on supporting the task of finding web resources through 'standard' information retrieval mechanisms, or semantics-enhanced search. Much less attention has been paid to the second problem. In this paper we describe Magpie, a tool which supports the interpretation of web pages. Magpie offers complementary knowledge sources, which a reader can call upon to quickly gain access to any background knowledge relevant to a web resource. Magpie automatically associates an ontology-based semantic layer to web resources, allowing relevant services to be invoked within a standard web browser. Hence, Magpie may be seen as a step towards a semantic web browser. The functionality of Magpie is illustrated using examples of how it has been integrated with our lab's web resources.

LKMS – A Legal Knowledge Management System Exploiting Semantic Web Technologies

“…during normal monitoring activities of selected sources) or actively searching for something relevant for a case he is working on. Tools like Magpie [24], a browser add-on that uses an ontology infrastructure to semantically markup web documents on-the-fly -which we tested integrated in SemantiK deriving automatically references for Juridical Concepts from our ontology -may support the user in making sense of browsed pages on the web against internal knowledge, highlighting references to annotated material of LKMS stored documents (see Fig. 5).…”

“…We can cite ODESeW [19], OntoWebber [20], SEAL [21], OntoWeb [22] and OntoView [23]. Other tools share with LKMS the semantic browsing approach, such as already mentioned Magpie [24], or Topicalla [25], a client application for the Semantic Web which allows one to view information using a UI that is generated based on the kind of data available. However these tools and platforms aim mainly to support accessing and retrieval of information, while the purpose of our system is to support the whole knowledge creation process.…”

Collaborative Semantic Web Browsing with Magpie

“…This broad aim was elaborated into a set of design requirements we believe are important for designing user-oriented and user-driven applications for browsing and understanding the semantic web. The full list of requirements is given in [8]; here we highlight the key points:…”

“…Magpie automatically associates a semantic layer to a web resource, rather than relying on a manual annotation [8]. Semantic layering relies on the availability of an ontology [12] -an explicit, declarative representation of a domain.…”

“…In earlier papers [6][7][8] we gave an overview of the Magpie framework and design principles and outlined Magpie's basic functionalities. A key principle underlying the design of Magpie is that the ontology provides an explicit interpretative viewpoint over the web resources.…”