Semantic Web Primer 

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001

Overview articles

• The Semantic Web lifts off by Tim Berners-Lee and Eric Miller: Authoritative and easy to read article on the direction of the Semantic  Web
• The Semantic Web by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila: A more comprehensive article 
• Welcome article from SemanticWeb.org: Definition and short examples

History

It was conceived originally by the inventor of the Web itself! Those of you who do not know that there was an inventor (i.e. not corporation or government) check out Tim Berners-Lee. The Semantic Web was part of his original design. 

Building blocks

The Semantic Web extends the World Wide Web by adding formal meaning (semantics) to its data. This is done by describing web data as instances of ontologies. To be universal the language used to build ontologies should follow global standard of information interchange. The leading ontology language DAML+OIL(OWL)  has been  developed using  RDF, a frame work for describing web resources. 

Some concepts explained by W3C

Tutorials

• The Semantic Web: An Introduction
• DAML+OIL tutorial 
• Why use DAML?
• An example of Semantic markup, deconstructed

Portals

• Semantic Web Activity statement (direction)
• DARPA Agent Markup Language

• DAML+OIL players

• Semantic web .org
• Richard Fikes at Stanford KSL
• Peter Clarks Page at U of Texas
• Stanford KNOWS