LOCAH Project and Considerations of Linked Data Approaches

UKOLN is supported by: LOCAH Project and Considerations of Linked Data Approaches 29 th March 2011 JISC Managing Research Data International Workshop, Birmingham, UK Adrian Stevenson LOCAH Project Manager

“ The term Linked Data refers to a set of best practices for publishing and connecting structured data on the Web.”
“ the Semantic Web is the goal or end result… Linked Data provides the means to reach that goal”
From ‘ Linked Data: The Story So Far ’ - Heath, Bizer and Berners-Lee 2009

The goal of Linked Data is to enable people to share structured data on the Web as easily as they can share documents today. Bizer/Cyganiak/Heath Linked Data Tutorial, linkeddata.org

In essence, it marks a shift in thinking from publishing data in human readable HTML documents to machine readable documents. That means that machines can do a little more of the thinking work for us. http://www.linkeddatatools.com/semantic-web-basics

But haven’t we been putting linked data on the web for years?
In CSV , relational databases, XML etc?
Well yes, but these approaches are not so easy to integrate
Web 2.0 mashups work against a fixed set of data sources
Linked Data applications operate on top of an unbound, global data space.

So what’s been happening?

Data.gov.uk Officially launched 21 st January 2010

BBC Music

A little bit of the techy stuff

Linked Data is …
A way of publishing data on the web that:
Encourages reuse
Reduces redundancy
Maximises inter-connectedness
Enables network effects
So how is this achieved?

Presentational tagging – HTML
<h1>Manchester Physiotherapy Centre</h1> <p>Welcome to the Manchester Physiotherapy Centre home page. Do you feel pain? Have you had an injury? Let our staff take care of your body and soul.</p> <h2>Consultation hours</h2> Mon 11am - 7pm<br/> Tue 11am - 7pm<br/> Wed 3pm - 7pm<br/> Thu 11am - 7pm<br/> Fri 11am - 3pm
<p> Please note that we will not be offering consultation during the weeks of the <a href=". . .">Olympic</a> games.</p>

Semantic tagging
<company>
<treatmentOffered>Physiotherapy</treatmentOffered>
<companyName>Manchester Physiotherapy Centre</companyName>
<staff>
<therapist>Lisa Davenport</therapist> <therapist>Steve Matthews</therapist>
<secretary>Kelly Townsend</secretary>
</staff>
</company>

Linked Data Design Issues
URIs
LD Design Issues
Triples
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

URIs and HTTP
A ‘Uniform Resource Identifier’ (URI) provides a simple and extensible means for identifying a resource - RFC 3986
HTTP URIs can be ‘de-referenced’
A URL is a type of URI
HTTP URIs are used for “real world” things
http://adrianstevenson.com/id/me
http://dbpedia.org/page/Tim_Berners-Lee

RDF
Resource Description Framework
a language for representing information about resources on the Web
RDF can be used to represent things identified on the Web, even when they cannot be directly retrieved on the Web
Describes relations using ‘triples’
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/

Triples
Triples statements
‘ Things’ have ‘properties’ with ‘values’
Subject – Predicate - Object
Triples are the basis of RDF
Archival Resource Repository Provides Access To The Rolling Stones Keith Richards Is Member Of

BBC Music

LOCAH Project

What is the LOCAH Project?
L inked O pen C opac and A rchives H ub
Funded by #JiscEXPO 2/10 ‘Expose’ call
1 year project. Started August 2010
http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/locah/ tag: #locah

What are the Archives Hub and Copac?
National data services
The Archives Hub is an aggregation of archival descriptions from archive repositories across the UK
http://archiveshub.ac.uk
Copac provides access to the merged library catalogues of libraries throughout the UK, including all national libraries
http://copac.ac.uk

What is LOCAH Doing?
Part 1: Exposing Archives Hub & Copac data as Linked Data
Part 2: Creating a prototype visualisation
Part 3: Reporting on opportunities and barriers

LOCAH Linked Data
If something is identified, it can be linked to
We can then take items from one dataset and link them to items from other datasets
BBC VIAF DBPedia Archives Hub Copac GeoNames

BBC:Cranford VIAF:Dickens DBpedia: Gaskell Hub:Gaskell Copac:Cranford Geonames:Manchester DBpedia: Dickens Hub:Dickens The Linking benefits of Linked Data

Archives Hub Model (as at 14/2/2011) Archival Resource Finding Aid EAD Document Biographical History Agent Family Person Place Concept Genre Function Organisation maintainedBy/ maintains origination associatedWith accessProvidedBy/ providesAccessTo topic/ page hasPart/ partOf hasPart/ partOf encodedAs/ encodes Repository (Agent) Book Place topic/ page Language Level administeredBy/ administers hasBiogHist/ isBiogHistFor foaf:focus Is-a associatedWith level Is-a language Concept Scheme inScheme Object representedBy Postcode Unit Extent Creation Birth Death extent participates in Temporal Entity Temporal Entity at time at time product of in

Enhancing our data
Already have some links:
lexvo.org URIs for languages of archival materials
reference.data.gov.uk URIs for time periods
Postcodes, using both UK Postcodes URIs and Ordnance Survey URIs
Virtual International Authority File
Matches and links widely-used authority files - http://viaf.org/
DBPedia
Also looking at:
Library Congress Subject Headings

http://data.archiveshub.ac.uk/id/archivalresource/gb1086skinner

http://data.archiveshub.ac.uk/doc/person/ncarules/chamberlainarthurneville1869-1940statesman

How are we creating the Visualisation Prototype?
Based on researcher use cases
Data queried from Sparql endpoint
Use tools such as Simile, Many Eyes, Google Charts
Also looking at custom built prototype

Use Case Slide http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/Use_Case_LOCAH

Visualisation Prototype
Using Timemap –
Googlemaps and Simile
http://code.google.com/p/timemap /
Early stages with this
Will give location and ‘extent’ of archive.
Will link through to Archives Hub

Some issues
Data Modelling
Sustainability
Provenance
Licensing

Data Modelling Challenges
Archival description is hierarchical and multi-level
Archives Hub: inconsistencies in data and lack of standardisation
there's no content standard in the UK

Sustainability
Can you rely on data sources long-term?
Ed Summers at the Library of Congress created http://lcsh.info
Linked Data interface for LOC subject headings
People started using it

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Provenance
Triples create individual statements
OK if data ‘watermarked’
But can often be a problem

Licensing
Nature of Linked Data: each triple as a piece of data
‘ Ownership’ of data
Hard to track attribution
We’re using CC BY-NC 2.0 for now

Questions?

Attribution and CC License
Sections of this presentation adapted from materials created by other members of the LOCAH Project
This presentation available under creative commons Non Commercial-Share Alike:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/

LOCAH Project and Considerations of Linked Data Approaches

by Adrian Stevenson on Mar 29, 2011

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LOCAH Project and Considerations of Linked Data Approaches Presentation Transcript