XML Topic Maps

The explosive growth of the World Wide Web is fueling the need for a new generation of technologies for managing information flow, data, and knowledge. This developer's overview and how-to book provides a complete introduction and application guide to the world of topic maps, the powerful new means of navigating the World Wide Web. With contributed chapters written by today's leading Web experts, XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web is designed to be a living document for managing information across the Web's interconnected resources, with a companion Web site and discussion forums at nexist. Beginning with a broad introduction and tutorial of topic maps and XTM technology, the book then lays out strategies for creating and deploying the technology. Along the way the latest theoretical perspectives are offered along with a discussion of the challenges developers will face as the Web continues to evolve and develop. Looking forward, the book's concluding chapters provide a road map to the future of topic map technology and the semantic Web in general. Further topics covered in detail include: Topic mapping and the XTM specification. Using XML Topic Maps to build knowledge repositories. Knowledge Representation, ontological engineering, and topic maps. Transforming an XTM document into a Web page. Creating enterprise Web sites with topic maps and XSLT. Open source topic map software. XTM, RDF, and topic maps. Semantic networks and knowledge organization. Using topic maps in education. Topic maps, pedagogy, and future perspectives. Featuring the latest perspectives from today's leading Web experts, this book provides the tools, techniques, and resources necessary to plot the changing course of information management across the World Wide Web.