Semantic Web Interest Group Charter

Note: This is the charter for the Semantic Web Interest Group (formerly the RDF Interest Group). This document supersedes the Interest Group's previous Charter.

Per section 6 Working Groups, Interest Groups, and Coordination Groups of the W3C Process, this charter, and any changes to it, take effect by way of an announcement to the W3C Membership via w3c-ac-members.

About

The Semantic Web Interest Group is designed as a forum to support developers and users of Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, SPARQL, SKOS and OWL. The group in particular serves to help developers create vocabularies and applications to support a Web data marketplace combining harvesting, syndication, metadata and Web Service techniques.

Mission statement
Scope of the work
Deliverables
Coordination with other Activities and Groups
Meetings and Discussion fora
Membership
Communication and Confidentiality
Duration
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
Contact
About this Charter

1. Mission statement

The Semantic Web Interest Group is a forum for W3C Members and non-Members to discuss innovative Semantic Web applications. The group will focus primarily on applications of the W3C Semantic Web technologies (RDF, OWL, SPARQL, etc), on potential future work items related to technologies, and the relationship of that work to other activities of W3C and to the broader social and legal context in which the Web is situated.

The Semantic Web Interest Group hosts discussions of both architectural/systems issues and application (e.g. T&S) interests; it is a forum for developers and users of Semantic Web technology. The group is a continuation of the earlier RDF Interest Group and issues addressed previously by the PICS initiative. initiative. Specifically, the Interest Group may explore the application of W3C Semantic Web technologies in the context of the social, legal, and technological issues surrounding Internet content selection, filtering, labelling, signing, quality assurance etc. Work items from other fora may be brought to the attention of the Interest Group for comment.

An important function of the Interest Group is information sharing within and between application communities. Conference announcements and post-conference reviews to the Interest Group mailing list help advise W3C staff and W3C Members, as well as the Semantic Web Community at large, where the W3C might most effectively allocate resources.

2. Scope of the work

The Semantic Web Interest Group is designed as a forum to support developers and users of Semantic Web technologies such as RDF, SPARQL, and OWL. The group in particular serves to help developers create vocabularies and applications to support a Web data marketplace combining harvesting, syndication, metadata and Web Service techniques.

Semantic Web developers are already collaborating on vocabularies for areas such as Sitemaps, robots.txt, RSS, Dublin Core, FOAF, favicon, relationships between relational databases and RDF, syntactic inclusion and association of metadata etc. The Interest Group provides a forum to support such collaborative vocabulary development, through the use of email discussion, scheduled topical chats (using IRC), Wiki and Weblog tools.

3. Deliverables

As an Interest Group, the Semantic Web Interest Group does not develop specifications or code, and, as a body, it does not have a specific set of deliverables. The Interest Group may be asked to review Last Call Working Drafts and Proposed Recommendations. The Interest Group may also make proposals to other W3C Groups through the W3C Team contact when there is evidence of sufficient Member interest in a work item.

The Interest Group may work on (non recommendation-track) W3C technical reports, for publication as 'Interest Group Notes'.

4. Coordination with other Activities and Groups

Informal coordination is done via the Interest Group's mailing lists. More formal coordination is done within the Semantic Web Coordination Group. The Chair is a member of the W3C Semantic Web Coordination Group (W3C member only).

Discussion of Web Service applications and technology is welcome within the Semantic Web Interest Group, however detailed collaboration and design discussions on the relationship between Semantic Web and Web Service technology should be directed to W3C's Semantic Web Services Interest Group.

The Semantic Web Interest Group is also a forum where W3C encourages the presentation of research work-in-progress. By tracking such work W3C stays informed of potential future standardization opportunities. The MIT Decentralized Information Group is one example of such a research group who we hope will continue to maintain close ties with SWIG.

5. Meetings and Discussion fora

The Interest Group functions primarily through open e-mail distribution lists hosted by W3C. The main IG list is <semantic-web@w3.org>, with a publicly accessible archive. Other lists sponsored by the Interest Group include www-rdf-logic, www-rdf-calendar, sparql-dev, www-annotation, and public-vocabs. The Interest Group home page provides the authoritative list of W3C email lists sponsored by the Group.

The Semantic Web Interest Group exists primarily as an online forum; it does not typically conduct weekly phone conferences. The Interest Group may also conduct virtual meetings using email, IRC, wiki and teleconference facilities, although the large scale, International nature of the group motivates a focus on low cost, asynchronous mechanisms such as email. The Interest Group may on occasion meet or sponsor "Birds-Of-a-Feather" sessions at conferences, W3C Technical Plenaries or alongside other W3C meetings, at the discretion of the Chair and W3C staff contact.

The Interest Group communicates primarily in English, yet seeks to serve an International community. Individuals and groups that can help support cross-language discussion and collaboration are particularly welcome as participants in the Interest Group.

6. Membership

Any person interested in the application of or extensions to the Resource Description Framework is eligible to participate in this Interest Group; W3C Membership is not a prerequisite.

7. Communications and confidentiality

The Semantic Web Interest Group is a public forum. SW IG mailing lists and their archives (primarily semantic-web) are publicly accessible.

8. Duration

The Semantic Web Interest Group is part of the W3C Semantic Web Activity and is chartered until the end of the Activity, 30 July 2016.

9. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

The Semantic Web Interest Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on Semantic Web technology and applications. W3C advises that information shared in the interest group through mailing list and meetings is publicly visible. W3C reminds participants to disclose, where known, the IPR status of information that they share in the Interest Group meetings and materials, in accordance with Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

10. Contact

The chair of the Interest Group is Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org>, Google, the W3C Staff Contact is Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>.

11. About this charter

On 10 December 2013, this charter's end date was extended from 28 February 2014 to 30 July 2016.

Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>, (W3C) Semantic Web Activity Lead

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