Describing web resources using formal knowledge (i.e., creating metadata according to a formal representation of a domain
of discourse) is the essence of the next evolution step of the Web, termed the Semantic Web. The W3C’s RDF/S (Resource Description
Framework/Schema Language) enables the creation and exchange of resource metadata as normal web data. In this paper, we investigate
the use of RDFS schemas as a means of knowledge representation and exchange in diverse application domains. In order to reason
about the quality of existing RDF schemas, a benchmark serves as the basis of a statistical analysis performed with the aid
of VRP, the Validating RDF Parser. The statistical data extracted lead to corollaries about the size and the morphology of
RDF/S schemas. Furthermore, the study of the collected schemas draws useful conclusions about the actual use of RDF modeling
constructs and frequent misuses of RDF/S syntax and/or semantics.
This work has been partially supported by the EU Projects OntoWeb (IST-2000-29243) and Question-How (IST-2000-28767).