What is the difference between RDF Schema and Ontology?

Question

I am new to Semantic Web and confused regarding RDFs and Ontology. Can someone explain the difference between RDF Schema and Ontology?

Answer 1

Do you mean 'what is the difference between RDF Schema' and 'Web Ontology Language (OWL2)'. If so then there are a few main differences. Both are ways to create vocabularies of terms to describe data when represented as RDF. OWL2 and its subsets (OWL DL, OWL Full, OWL Lite) contain all the terms contained in RDFS but allow for greater expressiveness, including quite sophisticated class and property expressions. In additional, one of the subsets of OWL2 (OWL Full) can be modelled in such a way that when reasoned using an OWL Full reasoner, is undecidable. Both are representable as RDF and both are W3C Web Standards.

If you want to compare RDFS and ontology, not specifically in the context above, but in the context of Semantic Web, then my advice would be to very careful. Careful because you will find several distinct and not necessarily mutually exclusive camps; those with an interest in ontology from a philosophical perspective, those from a computing perspective, those who think the philosophical perspective should be the only perspective and those that don't. If you are any of those ways inclined, you can end up having great debates. But if you want to engage in Semantic Web Development, then the fastest route is to study and understand the Web Standards mentioned initially.