Linked Open Data : opportunités et défis par Makx Dekkers

Linked (Open) Data Opportunities and challenges Makx Dekkers [email_address]

Outline
Basic notions
Recent developments
Comparing objectives
Opportunities and risks
Conclusions
© 2011 Makx Dekkers Journeés ABES 2011

The idea and its history
1989: Tim Berners-Lee already talked about linking documents and data together ( http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html )
2001: Tim Berners-Lee and Ora Lassila introduced the “Semantic Web” ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web )
2006: Tim Berners-Lee presented the initial design issues (rules) for Linked Data ( http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html )

W3C Semantic Web initiative
Objective
to create a universal medium for the exchange of data […] to smoothly interconnect personal information management, enterprise application integration, and the global sharing of commercial, scientific and cultural data
Main results
Resource Description Framework (RDF), RDFa (RDF-in-HTML), SPARQL Query Language

Core Linked Data Specifications
Transport
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol
Identification
URI Uniform Resource Identifier
Description and linking
RDF Resource Description Framework
Search and access
SPARQL Query Language for RDF

The four rules of Linked Data
TBL’s recommendations:
Use URIs as names for things
Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names
When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF*, SPARQL)
Include links to other URIs so that they can discover more things

The basic model of RDF
Resource Description Framework “triple”:
Subject: the “thing” (resource) described
Predicate: the characteristic of the resource
Object: the value of the characteristic
Subject Object Predicate © 2011 Makx Dekkers Journeés ABES 2011

Complex structures in RDF This presentation Makx Dekkers Barcelona Journées ABES ABES Montpellier 17-18 May 2011 presenter partOf organizer location hometown date location © 2011 Makx Dekkers Journeés ABES 2011

Linked (Open / Enterprise) Data
Commonalities
Using Semantic Web technologies (RDF)
Linking information resources, people, places
Differences
Open Data with open licenses; Enterprise Data mostly for closed, controlled environments
Open Data links to other Open Data, available for external use; Enterprise Data may link to external data but not openly available for external use

Linked Data -- Open Data
Linked Data: focus on technology
Semantic Web: Resource Description Framework, and other Web standards
Final solutions still under development
Open Data: focus on strategy
Based on notion that sharing is important and benefits all
Technology is secondary

W3C communities
LinkingOpenData SWEO Community Project
Goal: to extend the Web with a data commons by publishing various open data sets as RDF on the Web and by setting RDF links between data items from different data sources ( http://www.w3.org/wiki/SweoIG/TaskForces/CommunityProjects/LinkingOpenData )
Library Linked Data Incubator Group
to help increase global interoperability of library data on the Web ( http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/ )

More W3C communities
Government Linking Data Working Group
to provide standards and other information which help governments around the world publish their data as effective and usable linked data ( http:// www.w3.org/2011/gld/charter )
Semantic Web Health Care and Life Sciences (HCLS) Interest Group
to develop, advocate for, and support the use of Semantic Web technologies for health care and life science (e.g. biology, medicine) ( http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/hcls / )

Open Knowledge Foundation, okfn.org
not-for-profit organization promoting open knowledge: any kind of data and content that can be freely used, reused, and redistributed
Working and Interest Groups, e.g.
Open Data in Science, Open Government Data, Open Bibliographic Data, Cultural Heritage etc.
CKAN.net: registry of open datasets and other “knowledge resources”

Linked Data initiatives © 2011 Makx Dekkers Journeés ABES 2011 Predicate vocabularies (descriptors) Research Description and Access (RDA) http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm The Bibliographic Ontology (BIBO) http://bibliontology.com/ Dublin Core http://dublincore.org/ Object vocabularies (values) Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) http://viaf.org/ Library of Congress authorities http://id.loc.gov/authorities/ AgroVOC (agricultural terminology) e.g. http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_550 DBPedia (based on Wikipedia) e.g. http://dbpedia.org/page/Montpellier Bibliographic data LIBRIS Sweden e.g. http://libris.kb.se/library/S British Library http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datasamples.html CrossRef (DOI metadata) http://www.crossref.org/CrossTech/linked_data/

More Linked Data initiatives © 2011 Makx Dekkers Journeés ABES 2011 Broadcasting, publishing BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/linked_data/ New York Times http://data.nytimes.com/ Governments (small sample) USA http://data.gov/ France http://opendata.paris.fr/ Finland http://data.suomi.fi/ UK http://data.gov.uk/ Spain (Cataluña) http://dadesobertes.gencat.cat/ Norway http://data.norge.no Netherlands http://www.overheid.nl/opendata Australia http://data.gov.au/

Strategic aspects Linked Data
Achieving global interoperability with minimal coordination
Aggregating human knowledge
Supporting democracy, transparency and accountability
Enhancing and enriching information
Enabling user-driven and user-generated applications

Strategic aspects libraries
Organizing information for use by specific users for specific goals
Ensuring and maintaining quality
Sustaining services economically
Preserving information for the long term
Providing trusted services

Functional aspects Linked Data
Searching distributed collections
“ Following your nose” – navigating links between pieces of content
Distributing responsibility for making statements about things
Leaving to the user whom and what to trust
Leaving development of products and services to an open market (apps)

Functional aspects libraries
Describing information by professionals
Bringing together and managing aggregations of information
Selecting relevant information
Mixing analogue and digital resources

Technical aspects Linked Data
Publishing and using machine-readable statements (“data that speak for themselves”)
Focusing on Semantic Web technology
Enabling inferences across large distributed data sets
(Still to be done) Solving issues around harvesting, caching and real-time updating

Technical aspects libraries
Using proven technology to provide high-quality services
Managing production systems and services
Guaranteeing performance, uptime, consistency across data

Agility versus sustainability
In the Linked Data space:
Things move fast
Trial-and-error
Lots of development by volunteers (hackers)
In the library domain:
Operational systems need to evolve
Need to handle legacy data
Development by professionals in managed projects

Data versus services
Focus on availability of “raw data”
Quality is secondary
Data and technology should lead to useful results
Focus on services
Quality is essential
Data and technology in support of the service

Economic aspects
“ Information wants to be free” – a human right?
Short-term thinking: today is hot, yesterday is not
Focus on applications to create value out of data
Long-term view: sustainability is crucial
Public money to provide community services
Expected to do more with less money

Strong points Linked Data
Attempt to create a common technical platform for machine-readable data
Lots of enthusiasm in publishing open data
Promise of global interoperability
Mix of researchers, user communities, hackers, professional data providers
High visibility on political level

Risks Linked Data
Driven by technology, not by requirements
Technology may not (yet) be stable – RDF 2.0?
Operational issues far from solved (reliability, performance, quality, security, trust)
Hope for general agreement across domains may not be realistic
Promise may turn into disappointment

Strong points libraries
Long time operational experience in managing information
Professional intermediaries between users and information needs
Sustainable business models (albeit with eternally shrinking budgets)
Long-term perspective: the past (legacy data) as well as the future (preservation)

Risks libraries
Technologies change rapidly
New skills difficult to spread through the organization
Some people see libraries as a thing of the past (“the book museum”)
Underestimation of information handling skills
Information overload, human intervention does not scale, need for better tools

Meeting both worlds
An example: Europeana.eu
Started out with domain perspectives (libraries, archives, museums, audiovisual archives)
“ Traditional” approach (metadata mappings) works but insufficient
Using Linked Data approach preserves domain specifics but allows for generalization to support common services
Cross-domain (but co-ordinated) interoperability

Libraries and Linked Data
Using Linked Data technology as the next step in connecting services
Offering information management skills to the technology domain
Creating a quality hub in the Linked Data space

Best of both worlds
Libraries providing stability and sustainability to Linked Data spaces
Library professionals helping to manage the distributed collections
Libraries delivering high-quality linked data to the Web
Technologists to provide the next generation of systems and tools

Linked (Open) Data: opportunity for libraries! Thank you! Makx Dekkers [email_address]

Linked Open Data : opportunités et défis par Makx Dekkers

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