Supporting e-Science Using Semantic Web Technologies – The Semantic Grid

Abstract

The capabilities of the Web have had a very significant impact in facilitating new practice in science: it supports wide-scale information discovery and sharing, facilitating collaboration and enabling widespread participation in digital science, and increasingly it also provides a platform for developing and delivering software and services to support science. In this chapter we focus on the role of the ideas and technologies of the Semantic Web in providing and utilising the infrastructure for science. Our emphasis on Semantic Web and on the joined-up infrastructure to support the increasing scale of data, computation, collaboration and automation as science and computing advance has led to this field being known as the "Semantic Grid". Since its instigation in 2001 the Semantic Grid community has established a significant body of work, and the approach continues to underpin new scientific practice in multiple disciplines.