Topic outline

  • Textbooks

    This course makes use of the following textbook:

    G. Antoniu, P. Groth, F. van Harmelen, and R. Hoeksra:  Semantic Web Primer, 3 Ed., MIT Press, 2015.

    If you are fluent in Finnish, there is also this textbook available:

    E. Hyvönen: Semanttinen Web - Linkitetyn avoimen datan käsikirja, Gaudeamus, 2018. 

    Schedule of Lectures

    DateTopic  Book chapters
    13.01.2021Introduction, WWW today, and Semantic WebSemantic Web Primer Ch. 1 (Ch.1 [+ Ch. 2] in older eds.).
    20.01.2021RDF and RDF SchemaSemantic Web Primer Ch. 2 (Ch. 3 in older eds.).
    27.01.2021Linked Data and SPARQL
    Linked Data book Ch. 1-2; Semantic Web Primer Ch. 3 (Sec. 3.9 in 2nd ed.) .
    03.02.2021Knowledge Organization Systems  and SKOSSemantic Web Primer Ch. 7.
    10.02.2021Web Ontology Language OWLSemantic Web Primer Ch. 4 (older eds. cover OWL 1 instead of OWL 2, see changes).

    17.02.2021

    Logic and Inference: RulesSemantic Web Primer Ch. 5 (older eds. lack some technologies: e.g., OWL 2 RL, RIF, SWRL, SPIN). See also slides on nonmonotonic rules.

    Semantic Web Infrastructure and Applications
    Semantic Web Primer Ch. 6 (older eds. have slightly different application descriptions). 
    Linked Data book Ch. 6.






    Lecture slides and videos will be added on this page as the course proceeds.

    The lectures are given in Zoom at 10:15–12:00.


    https://aalto.zoom.us/j/68503036365?pwd=UVlWWDE0N21kZS9OaVkwQkJvUFFpdz09

    Additional material related to the lectures of the course:


    Linked Data School LinDa online learning materials.

    Lecture Slides and Learning Materials
    • This lecture first gives an introduction to the course. After this an overview of WWW technologies in use today is given. Finally a general motivating introduction to the Semantic web is presented.

    • RDF and RDF Schema specifications standardized  by of the W3C organization form the backbone for representing data and knowledge on the Semantic Web, the Web of Data. The slide sets describe the RDF data model and language as well as RDF Schema extending RDF to representing class and property hierarchies and property constraints for data modeling.

    • This lecture explains how RDF-based Linked Data can be published on the Web, and  be used via APIs, especially by using the SPARQL query language on top of SPARQL endpoints.

    • This lecture first introduces the underlying of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) developed in different disciplines.

      Second, the Semantic Web standard SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization Systems is presented. It is used for representing KOSs in RDF form.

      In Finland, lots of SKOS-based ontologies are provided openly by the National Library at the Finto.fi service, whose prototype ONKI.fi was developed at Aalto University. 

      BioPortal is an example of a massive ontology service focusing on biomedical ontologies. 

    • This lecture presents the logic-based Web Ontology Language OWL of W3C for developing Semantic Web ontologies.

      The first video presents some background and context about OWL.

      The second video introduces the OWL language.

      The third video explains how ontologies can be created in practice by using an ontology editor.

      The series of hands-on videos of using Protege by Noureddin Sadawi in YouTube mentioned in the slides can be watched here:


    • Semantic web knowledge graphs can be enriched by logic-based reasoning.

    • This lecture discusses infrastructures available for developing Semantic Web applications and presents a few case studies.

      Finnish Semantic Web Infrastructure 


      Case: WarSampo - Finnish WW2 on the Semantic Web


      Case: BIographySampo - Biographies on the Semantic Web


      Case: LetterSampo - Reassembling the Republic of Letters


      Case: AcademySampo: Academic People in Finland 1640-1899