The practical issues surrounding the rolling out of the Semantic Web were then summarised.
- MDA to tweak the standards at source through another version of Spectrum.
- To not lead with the technology.
- To remember that there are different markets and different cases that need to be made to them. This includes different institutions from the local to the national and within them their different attitudes towards technology, as well as the differences that will be need to be made to bodies inside and outside the sector.
- To talk to funding bodies in order to instigate changes on funding application forms to include ‘meaningful’ access to digital collections.
- To remember that the Semantic Web does not have to work directly or immediately with collections.
And were followed by the potential risks:
- Being too prescriptive
- That people will be apathetic
- Being irrelevant
- Having an approach that is too top-down
- Over-selling
- Lack of take-up by users – affecting sustainability
- Missing the opportunity
Jon Pratty: I feel positive about it. We are on the edge of this fascinating explosion and expansion of the capability of the Web and I think that possibly, if there is risk, it’s that people in the sector who are not techies are not being carried along with us. Let’s articulate why we are here, let’s articulate the pluses from a user’s point of view and get it there into the museum in simple terms.
UK Museums and the Semantic Web 