Weaving the semantic web – RMIT and Fuji Xerox joint research

The three year Australian Research Council project is titled Towards the ‘Semantic Web’ ; Standards and Interoperability Across Document Management and Publishing Supply Chains. It is focused on mapping end-to-end document process and investigating the potential for documents to convert into other forms of technology.

According to an InfoTRends report organizations are currently spending six per cent of their revenue on copying, printing and fax-related costs. Any methods of reducing the amount of intervention currently required to reformat has the potential to effect major savings.

RMIT partner investigator, Dr Bill Cope, a leading expert in new media and publishing technologies said: “Information technology is advancing at a rapid rate and this is impacting on many aspects of our everyday lives. There are many places where we create documents in this knowledge or information society—in education and at work.

“Yet there are many different formats for print, for the web and for voice synthesis, which still cannot communicate with one another. If you have a word document, you cannot easily convert this to a web page or listen to its content via radio or mobile phone.”

“We are investigating the potential of multi-purposing. How do we create text documents that can turn themselves into voice synthesis? How do we program documents that convert into a variety of forms?”

Dr Cope said the research aimed to make information more accessible and open up exciting new frontiers.
“If we can find a way for documents to communicate with each other, this opens up a new era of communication frontiers – not only in Australia but worldwide,” he said.

According to Anni-Rowland Campbell, marketing manager, production systems, Fuji Xerox, the project is one of the most important currently being undertaken by the industry.