DEVELOPER TOOLS

Australia's role in the development of the Semantic Web was recognized recently when the e-Health Research Centre's Dr David Hansen was accepted as a participant in the Semantic Web for Health Care and Life Sciences Interest Group (HCLSIG), a recently formed World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) interest group that had it's first meeting in Boston last week. Dr Hansen has an extensive background in data integration research and development in Australia and internationally, and is the Project Leader of the e-Health Research Centre's Health Data Integration (HDI) and e-Health Metadata & Ontologies projects. "The Group has been formed to connect the medical industry with Semantic Web experts in an effort to improve collaboration, research and development, and innovation adoption in the health care and life science industries," says Dr Hansen. "The W3C is developing standards and tools for the Semantic Web - the next generation of the World Wide Web. This technology relies heavily on metadata and ontologies." The e-Health Research Centre, a joint venture between CSIRO and the Queensland Government, is uniquely placed to contribute to the initiative through its research activities. In October last year, the CSIRO ICT Centre won the rights to host the Australian office of the W3C. Dr Alex Zelinsky, Director of CSIRO ICT Centre says "My plan is to increase the visibility of W3C in Australia and to create opportunities for Australian organisations to participate in W3C programs." "The e-Health Research Centre's metadata and ontologies project will have a global impact through its contribution to the Sematic Web work of the W3C."