I will have much more to write here as I work through amble through "Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist" (I know, I know...I'll add links later but I gotta get this out now!). I was tempted to skip the early, introductory chapters, but it was a delight to resist that urge. I've often had an inkling that the semantic web principles were deeply connected to the goals of liberal arts education, and with a few word exchanges, those appear elegantly in book.

Example (on the open world assumption). I'm switching a few words with []s

An open world in this sense is one in which we must assume at any time that new information [knowledge] could come to light, and we may draw no conclusions that rely on assuming that the information [knowledge] available at any one point is all the information [knowledge] available. (p 11)

Or this example.

What would you call a world in which any number of people can speak, when you never know who has something useful to say, and when someone new might come along at any time and make a valuable but unexpected contribution? What if just about everyone had the same goal of advancing the collaborative state of knowledge of the group, but there was little agreement (at first, anyway) about how to achieve it? (p 15)

A HEALTHY CLASSROOM! of course! But that's also the description that Allemang and Hendler give to the Semantic Web.

I'd call the first two chapters "The Semantic Web for the Teaching and Learning Humanist"