Data by itself is simply a collection of numbers. It only becomes meaningful when we weave it through context. A context of relevance that creates information - provides insight, creates solutions and solves problems. The Web gives us a fabric of connectedness, but if the data isn't substantiated semantically, the information we create isn't very useful. By building effective web assets using platforms like Drupal, we build ways to solve problems across the spectrum from local to global. We not only build the Web the way it was meant to be, but we also build it to support a commons across community, enterprise and government for generations to come.

1. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Professor, Information Systems Department
College of Business,
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
sverma@sfsu.edu
Unless noted otherwise
Drupal and the Semantic Web
Weaving Data to Build a Commons Across Community, Enterprise and Government
Caribbean Open Data Conference 2013
University of the West Indies, Jamaica

2. @sameerverma
Caution: Context can vary. Dramatically.

3. me

5. Also me
Institutional Academic Partner
Centre of Excellence
Mona School of Business
University of the West Indies
Jamaica
http://coe-msb.org/about

6. OLPC Jamaica
http://olpcjamaica.org.jm

7. Favorite Radio Station

8. Atoms v Bits
From Analog to Digital

9. Supply Chain
Produce Consume

10. Going Digital
Books
Music
Movies
Television
…
Conversation

11. Produce Consume
Think ->
Can the consumer also become the
producer?

12. “commons”

13. August Town
Jamaica
CC By SA @varunbaker

14. CC By SA @varunbaker

15. Needle meet Haystack
Can we find that beautiful
mermaid, made by a child in August
Town, Jamaica?

16. What are we really seeking?
Data → Information → Knowledge

17. WorldWideWeb (www version 1.0)
Tim's Boss: “Vague, but exciting.”

18. Web
The plan: semantic.
It became: Glorified Brochure.
Hand-coded HTML.
Horrible HTML editors.

19. Human readable
Web 1.0
Human readable? Yes.
Machine readable? Not quite.

20. Human understandable
Guess who?
All on one page?
It must be about him
...and his picture
...and his work
...and his email
...and ...

21. Massive network
Metcalfe's law
Utility = square of
the nodes
How do we keep
track?

22. Web servers and Web browsers

23. Connections
Dialup
DSL
Wi-Fi
4G
...
Network connections – neutral (we hope)

24. Relationships
“Content may be king, but context is everything.”
- @sameerverma

25. Machine Understandable

26. Meaningful relationships?
SVO
Subject Verb Object

27. Subject-Verb-Object
Sameer works at SF State University
Sameer works with UWI Mona
Sameer loves to drink Blue Mountain Coffee

28. Subject-Verb-Object
Sameer works at SF State University
Sameer works with UWI Mona
Sameer loves to drink Blue Mountain Coffee

29. Too many relationships
How do we keep track?
Taxonomies.
Ontologies.
Yes, those are two different things.

30. Twitter
#
Hashtag as an ad-hoc taxonomy.
“Folksonomy.”
Halpin, H., Robu, V. Shepherd, H. The Complex Dynamics of Collaborative Tagging
Proceedings, International Conference on World Wide Web, ACM Press, 2007.

31. Timeline
Microformats - 2003
RDFa - 2004
Microdata - 2009
RDFa Lite

32. RDF
Resource Description Framework
W3C standard
RDF's data model and XML syntax – 1999
http://www.w3.org/RDF/

33. RDF Example
slim:me foaf:name “Slim Shady”
prefix = “slim : http://slimshady.org/#”
prefix = “foaf: http://xmlns.com/foaf/”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is
My name is Slim Shady
SVO

34. RDFa
RDFa = implementation of RDF in HTML attributes
With RDFa
<h2 property="http://purl.org/dc/terms/title">
The Commons Initiative
</h2>
Without RDFa
<h2>
The Commons Initiative
</h2>

36. Marley

37. Marley

38. What is Drupal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drupal
https://drupal.org/about

39. RDF timeline in Drupal
rdf.php (2000)
FOAF, vCard (2004)
Relationship (2005)
Semantic Search (2006)
RDF (2007)
OpenCalais (2008)
RDF CCK (2008)

40. Drupal 7
Supports RDF in the core
Related modules:
RDFx
Schema.org
Continued and improved support in Drupal 8

41. Drupal 7 sample

42. RDF module disabled

43. RDF module enabled

44. RDF module enabled

45. One does not simply do
open data

46. Open Data
RDF fits
Store natively or in datastores
Federate stores and create linked data
Search using SPARQL
Giant Global Graph

49. Government

54. Get started
http://Drupal.org
Build a virtual machine server

56. Modules
rdfx
schema.org
entities
rdf-api
...

57. What are we really seeking?
Data → Information → Knowledge

58. A big “thank you” to:
Lin Clark
https://drupal.org/user/396253
Stephane Corlosquet
https://drupal.org/user/52142
Jeff Walpole
https://drupal.org/user/276718

59. Sources
● Mermaid, August Town, Jamaica
– https://secure.flickr.com/photos/olpc/5763693510/in/set-72157626689828813/
● Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
– https://teachingphysics.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/1554558-picard_earl_grey_hot_super.png
●
One does not simply do open data
– http://memegenerator.net/instance/36926082
●
Tim Berners-Lee: Web Developer
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug6XAw6hzaw
●
URIBurner – Marley Example
– http://linkeddata.uriburner.com/about/html/http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/ed2ac1e9-d51d-4eff-a2c2-8
5e81abd6360
●
OpenPublish
– http://openpublishapp.com/
●
OpenPublic
– http://openpublicapp.com/
Ontotext
– http://www.ontotext.com

60. Made with: