Discovery

The Internet and World Wide Web constitute an immense body of data, information, and knowledge accessible to anyone with a computer that can interact with the system. The Web can be thought of as a library containing a large fraction of the written, recorded, and graphic works of humanity, or as a database containing an almost unimaginable spectrum of data from scientific research, historical records, government records, sensor networks, etc.

The challenge with this mountain of resources is to find particular nuggets useful to answer questions and solve problems. Addressing this problem requires, first, understanding what kinds of things the World Wide Web offers, referred to as ‘resources’ in this discussion. Second, how are these resources described and documented such that they are useful? Third, how can descriptions of resources be made available on the Web to guide users to find and use the resources?