ITtalks: A Case Study in the Semantic Web and DAML+OIL

and application service frameworks). We believe that the Semantic Web markup language DAML+OIL (DARPA Agent Markup Language plus Ontology Inference Layer) will be central to this goal’s realization. The DAML Program aims to develop a Semantic Web markup language that provides sufficient rules for ontology development and that supports intelligent agents and other applications.1,2 (For more information, see the “DAML+OIL” sidebar.) As part of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s role in the DAML Program, we constructed a fielded application, ITtalks, which facilitates user and agent interaction for locating talks on information technology. ITtalks also lets developers design and create intelligent software agents that can understand and process information encoded in DAML+OIL or other semantically rich markup languages. Primarily, we focused on developing the support and infrastructure for integrating intelligent agents into the Web.