Berners-Lee, Hendler and Lassila: The Semantic Web

What changed

Articulated a Web architecture in which machine-processable meaning, shared ontologies and reasoning rules enable software agents and people to cooperate over linked information.

Scientific scope

The record is the exact May 2001 Scientific American article and its architectural vision. RDF, OWL and other standards, implementations, linked-data deployments and later semantic-web work retain separate attribution.

Evidence

The linked sources identify this contribution and its scope. WRS has not independently reconstructed the scientific claims. The record is the exact May 2001 Scientific American article and its architectural vision. RDF, OWL and other standards, implementations, linked-data deployments and later semantic-web work retain separate attribution.

Contributors

• Tim Berners-Lee · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• James Hendler · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.
• Ora Lassila · SCIENCE: Named source author of the scoped work; individual effort shares are not measured.

• The Semantic Web
• W3C record for The Semantic Web article

Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-16.1. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.

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