The shift towards Semantics in Business Intelligence

From ScenarioThinking
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Description

The Semantic Web is an extension to the World Wide Web whose purpose is to enable computers to interpret the meaning of content existent on the internet in a similar way humans do. It is meant to be a W3C standard describing the relationship between different types of information collected from several internet links. With semantics applied to the Web, we would achieve a more precise and efficiently structured search and would reduce the separation between websites that together contribute to creating more valuable data than the parts.

The Semantic Web can be used by businesses to be able to watch and track lowest prices, schedules, updates and a multitude of other useful information. The Enterprise Semantic Web is meant to focus on the implementation of the Semantic Web vision in the enterprise. It enables corporations to gain efficiency and reduce operating costs by becoming model-driven. It is aimed to support high data volumes, provide highly reliable and predictable platforms and create truly adaptive organizations.

Business intelligence in general aims to support business decision-making. It comes from the development of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems over the years. The term Business Intelligence 2.0 refers to the more proactive type of business intelligence, based on the semantic data model, on the meanings and relationships among objects. Research done in business intelligence nowadays tries to grasp benefits offered by the World Wide Web to corporations through the Semantic Web.

Other methods such as Enterprise Application Integration - the process of linking applications together within an organization in order to simplify and automate business process to a maximum - or Data Mining independently contribute to the development of Business Intelligence. It is still to be seen whether Business Intelligence 2.0, under the umbrella of a Semantic Web, will confirm as the new revolutionary approach to Business Intelligence. It can be highly significant for the future development of Enterprise IT.

Enablers

  1. Research & Development: The World Wide Web Consortium, big software corporations
  2. Applications using semantics and promoting the Semantic Web
  3. Funding from governments and international institutes
  4. Semantic research in the area of business intelligence

Inhibitors

  1. Privacy concerns related to the implementation of the Semantic Web
  2. Lack of scope and focus in the area of Semantic Web
  3. Failure to meet expectations of Business Intelligence 2.0

Paradigms

  1. The Internet will get developed into a fully Semantic Web driven place
  2. Business Intelligence 2.0 will become a main force in business strategy shaping new ways of corporate competition

Web Resources

  1. http://www.w3schools.com/semweb/default.asp
  2. http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Main_Page
  3. http://www.altova.com/semantic_web.html
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
  5. http://iswc2004.semanticweb.org/posters/NI-Pollock-ISWC-Poster.pdf
  6. http://lsdis.cs.uga.edu/library/download/Sheth05-IASW-invited-Fin2.pdf
  7. http://www.thefigtrees.net/lee/blog/2006/11/semantic_web_technologies_in_t.html
  8. http://www.semanticweb.com/article.php/3798561
  9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Application_Integration
Retrieved from "https://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=The_shift_towards_Semantics_in_Business_Intelligence&oldid=26409"