Building a Framework for Semantic Cultural Heritage Data

Building a frameworkfor semanticcultural heritage dataValentine Charles | VALA2016

Netherlands, Public Domain1660 - 1625, Rijksmuseum

AnonymousArrival of a Portuguese ship

IT ALL STARTS BY A LONG JOURNEY !

France, Public Domain1914, National Library of France

Agence de presse Meurisse

Concours de cycles nautiques sur le lac d’Enghien : Berregent piloté par Austerling

Building a framework for semantic cultural heritage data CC BY-SA

EDM past and presentCC BY-SA

CC BY-SABuilding a framework for semantic cultural heritage

data

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A vision …

Building a framework for semantic cultural heritage data

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… and the reality

Building a framework for semantic cultural heritage

BUILDING A COMMON DATA FRAMEWORK

Netherlands, Public Domain1615, Rijksmuseum

Anonymous

Elegant Party on a Terrace of a Venetian-inspired Setting

dc:contributor, dc:creator, dc:date, dc:format, dc:identifier, dc:language, dc:publisher, dc:relation, dc:source, dcterms:alternative, dcterms:extent, dcterms:temporal, dcterms:medium, dcterms:created,

dcterms:provenance, dcterms:issued, dcterms:conformsTo, dcterms:hasFormat, dcterms:isFormatOf,

dcterms:hasVersion, dcterms:isVersionOf, dcterms:hasPart, dcterms:isPartOf, dcterms:isReferencedBy…

europeana:type, europeana:dataProvider, europeana:provider, europeana:isShownAt,

europeana:isShownBy, europeana:object, europeana:rights

A first attempt: The Europeana Semantic Elements


data

A first attempt: The Europeana Semantic Elements

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• A flat model • With no links between cultural objects or

between objects and context entities (persons, places)

• Mixing data on real object and digital representation and provider information

• Causing a lot of mapping quality problems.


A new model, linked-data style

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• Cross-community re-use of data models

• Models that re-use existing models• Semantic Web technology allows mixing them!

• Collaborative, softer form of standardization


A new data framework: the Europeana Data Model (EDM)

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• A data model that re-uses several existing Semantic Web-based models

• Adopt Semantic Web representation principles (RDF)• Re-use and mix different vocabularies together

• Preserve original data and still allow for interoperability


OAI-ORE OWL

EDM basic pattern


data

LondonMelbourne

Dijkstra, R.H.

Connect Libraries to other domains

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• Create a “semantic layer” on top of cultural heritage objects


EDM IN EUROPEANA




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• Europeana now aggregates, processes, enriches metadata from the cultural heritage sector in Europe using EDM

• Provides a portal for users to access data and objects• Metadata under Creative

Commons Zero - public domain

• Previews and links to source


EDM in the Europeana platform

Building semantic links between objects

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EDM allows Europeana to build a network of digital and born-digital cultural heritage objects thanks to the representation of semantic links and relationships between objects.


Building a network of contextual information

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• Europeana builds its “Semantic Layer” by linking to contextual resources (e.g. concepts, persons, places).


CC BY-SABuilding a framework for semantic cultural heritage data

Publishing data in EDM

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• Europeana publishes EDM data• Via the Europeana API• Via Linked Open Data

at data.europeana.eu


EDM AS A FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE DATA




A community driven model

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• The input from the different communities makes the model stronger

• A important effort is made on the collection of requirements


Enable interoperability

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• Many projects and partners have worked on enabling metadata interoperability with Europeana

• either directly mapping their metadata to EDM according to the guidelines

• or creating specialisations of EDM for representing specific use-cases and minimising the loss of metadata from their original metadata format to EDM

Application profile Mapping

Extension

EDM


Make the model re-usable

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• EDM is developed to be as re-usable as possible. • EDM can be seen as an anchor to

which various finer-grained models can be attached, enhancing their interoperability at a semantic level

• Re-using existing vocabularies and defining mappings with existing standards is crucial for EDM to remain reusable by the cultural heritage domain


An example Digital Manuscripts to Europeana

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http://onto.dm2e.eu/schemas/dm2e Building a framework for semantic cultural heritage

data

Maintaining EDM as an open and living standard

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• The model is well- documented and openly shared• In a human-readable and machine-readable

documentation• Different documentation is produced for the

various profiles of EDM


AND FOR THE FUTURE?




“The design of data models is decentralized and tailored to specific applications, while the data created and exchanged with them still forms a vast, semantically interoperable knowledge environment.”

(Knowledge = Information in Context: on the Importance of Semantic

Contextualisation in Europeana, 2008 )

United Kingdom, CC BYThe Wellcome LibraryLuigi Garzi

The birth of Adonis and the transformation of Myrrha

Finer-grained representation of rights information

CC BY-SABuilding a framework for semantic cultural heritage datahttp://rightsstatements.org/

Support for Annotations

Modelling and Exchanging Annotations for Europeana Projects

DBpediaAPI

oa:Annotationhttp://

data.europeana.eu/annotation/...

oa:hasBody

skos:Concepthttp://dbpedia.org/re-

source/Brass_instrument

oa:tagging

oa:motivatedBy

edm:ProvidedCHOhttp://data.europeana.eu/item/...

oa:hasTarget

oa:SemanticTag

#tag1

Available Vocabularies

/ Datasets

skos:related



Agence de presse Mondial Photo-Presse.

Tournoi royal de motos à Londres : changement d'une roue de side-car en marche

“In true linked data fashion, EDM ‘profiles’ can be developed without Europeana having to update the core model. Elements can be attached to the model without a corresponding implementation in Europeana's core platform. ”

(Enhancing the European Data Model, 2015)

Maintaining interoperability in a growing ecosystem

• What should be the end- goal of EDM? • Centralised and reference model versus extensions of

the models • What should be the criteria for extending the model?


A simple model for complex data

• The success of EDM comes with its core base • But data providers now complains of its complexity…

• This can have lot of impact on the data quality


A solution: continue the soft standardization of the model

• Continue to develop EDM as an iterative process by re-using as much as possible existing solutions

• Developing and adopting best practices • If Europeana can’t develop the best practices

ourselves we will voice the requirements of cultural heritage within new groups (e.g., W3C)

• Encouraging re-use of EDM


Developing new solutions to support interoperability

• Further work on data validation is required ( e.g. RDF validation standards )

• Softer approaches to data checking could be designed

• More warnings and metrics to guide the data producers

• Crowdsourcing could be very valuable

• Especially to get a better grounding of what users generally need in data quality


To conclude• Develop data models that are

• interoperable

• Reusable

• Involve your stakeholders from the beginning and keep them involved

• Rely on technologies to help addressing more complex problems

• And if you can’t do it provide use cases !


With input slides from Antoine Isaac &Hugo Manguinhas, R&D team

Building a Framework for Semantic Cultural Heritage Data

Data & Analytics

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