Relevance of Semantic MediaWiki for Open Data, OpenGLAM, Linked Data and the Semantic Web

1. www.kdz.or.at
SMW between OpenData,
OpenGLAM, Linked Data and the
Semantic Web
October 2nd, 2014, SMWCon Vienna
Bernhard Krabina

2. Introduction
www.kdz.or.at
 KDZ – Centre for Public
Administration Research
 Open Knowledge –
Austrian Chapter
 Semantic MediaWiki
07. Oktober 2014 · Seite 2

3. Agenda
 Semantic MediaWiki and it‘s relevance
 SMW as producer of Open Data
 Consuming open data with SMW
 Conclusion and outlook
www.kdz.or.at
07. Oktober 2014 · Seite 3

4. The original idea of SMW: make data and
relations inside a wiki readable
www.kdz.or.at
Source: Völkel, Krötzsch,
Vrandecic, Haller, Studer,
„Semantic Wikipedia“, Demos
and Posters of the 3rd
European Semantic Web
Conference (ESWC 2006),
Budva, Montenegro, 11th-14th
June, 2006 Seite 4

5. Wikis and Data in 2014
www.kdz.or.at
 extract structured information from
Wikipedia and make this information
available on the Web
 free knowledge base that can be
read and edited by humans and
machines alike… central storage for
the data that may be accessed by
the client Wikis
 lets you store and query data within
the wiki's pages. Turns a wiki into a
powerful and flexible knowledge
management system.
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6. Semantic MediaWiki
Unstructured Text
 Strenghts of Wikis
 Structure via
Categories and
Namespaces
 Full Text Search
 Collaborative editing
 …
www.kdz.or.at
Structured Data
 Web database
 Online forms
 Result lists
 Facetted search
 Automatically generated
pages
 …
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7. www.kdz.or.at
www.semantic-mediawiki.org
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8. Agenda
 Semantic MediaWiki and it‘s relevance
 SMW as producer of Open Data
 Consuming open data with SMW
 Conclusion and outlook
www.kdz.or.at
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9. www.kdz.or.at
Vienna History Wiki
www.wien.gv.at/wiki
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10. www.kdz.or.at
List all pages of Category:Person
with Birthyear::1856 and
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Sex::male

11. > 40 different „result formats“
www.kdz.or.at
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12. www.kdz.or.at
RDF export = Open Data!
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13. LOD cloud
www.kdz.or.at

14. Agenda
 Semantic MediaWiki and it‘s relevance
 SMW as producer of Open Data
 Consuming open data with SMW
 Conclusion and outlook
www.kdz.or.at
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15. External Data Extension
www.kdz.or.at
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16. www.kdz.or.at
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Names of Cemetries
in Vienna published
in the OGD catalogue
data.gv.at – reused in
a wiki

17. www.kdz.or.at
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18. Agenda
 Semantic MediaWiki and it‘s relevance
 SMW as producer of Open Data
 Consuming open data with SMW
 Conclusion and outlook
www.kdz.or.at
07. Oktober 2014 · Seite 18

19. Strenghts and weaknesses
www.kdz.or.at
28.10.2013 · Seite 19
 ITS A GREAT TOOL!
 all the benefits of
(media)wiki
 web database with
configuration, no
programming
 forms and many
other extensions
 import/export of
data, result formats
 community support
 …
 no good, usable skins
 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Skin:Chameleon
 no WYSIWYG editor
 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor
 no access control
 https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Acces
s_Control_List
 no crowdfunding / poor
marketing
 some dead extensions
 some bugs don‘t get fixed
 not usable for complex data
structures

20. Conclusion
 SMW is (still) not well known
 project references lead to further use cases
 when people see what can be done, they like it
 people think of wikis and don‘t realize the
potential of SMW as a strategic platform
 access control is always requested
 SMW is NOT just semantic web project anymore
 SMW has potential to become THE OpenGLAM
tool: de.slideshare.net/krabina/semantic-mediawiki-als-openglam-tool
 SMW has a lot more future potential …
www.kdz.or.at
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21. Suggestion: Improve
community involvement / funding
www.kdz.or.at
28.10.2013 · Seite 21

22. Contact
www.kdz.or.at
Bernhard Krabina
krabina@kdz.or.at
4. Oktober 2012 · Seite 22
Thank you for
coming to
Vienna!