Humanities Research with the Web of Data

Mathieu d’Aquin - @mdaquin

Knowledge Media Institute, the Open University

Data…

… are at the center of research, especially when collaboration is involved.

… traditionally involve heavy, IT-centric, monolithic processes and mechanisms

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eiriks/3359730744/

Challenges

How do we expose these data in such way that they make all the potential uses of it feasible?

How do we expose these data so that they can connect to other collections, open information resources, etc?

How do we benefit from other information resources to enrich these data, derive new research questions, connect them to aspects not originally thought about?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/albinoflea/414906977/

Linked Data (tada!)

As set of principles and technologies for a Web of Data– Putting the “raw” data

online in a standard representation (RDF)

– Make the data Web addressable (URIs)

– Link to other Data

http://lucero-project.info/lb/what-is-linked-data/

http://linkeddata.org

data.open.ac.uk

Examples

http://data.open.ac.uk/openlearn/aa100_1 relatesToCourse

http://data.open.ac.uk/course/aa100hasCourseware

http://data.open.ac.uk/library/432284

http://data.open.ac.uk/course/aa100isAvailableIn

http://sws.geonames.org/2411586/ (Gibraltar)

Addressable and linkable data objects on the Web

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fynes/155086399/

http://data.open.ac.uk/applications

Linked data… and humanities

Still early stage, but– Can there be a Web of Data

for humanities?– What are the implications?

How can be we benefit? – Is this going to happen

naturally, or should we make a particular effort

http://www.flickr.com/photos/janrito/4443369049/

Example: Reading Experience Databasehttp://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/

Database Data

collection

website

Open University researchers Rest of the world

Experience

Person

Document

EventLocation

City Countrydate: Date

subClassOf

subClassOf

locatedIn

readerInvolved

textInvolved givesBackgroundTo

title: Stringdescription: Stringpublished: Date

creator/editor

providesExcerptFor

occupation

religion

originCountry

gender

LinkedEvent Ontology

CITO Citation Ontology

Dublin Core

FOAF

DBPedia

http://lucero-project.info/lb/2011/03/connecting-the-reading-experience-database-to-the-web-of-data/

Examples

http://data.open.ac.uk/red/person/austen-janeJane Austen

http://data.open.ac.uk/red/experience/10357Experience: Jane Austen reading “History of Great Britain”

http://data.open.ac.uk/red/document/1848957479“History of Great Britain”

http://data.open.ac.uk/red/document/1357827945-59“Jane Austen’s letters” (where her reading of “History of Great

Britain” is described)

http://data.open.ac.uk/red/person/austen-janesameAs

http://dbpedia.org/resource/Jane_Austen

These Web addresses refer to “data objects” connected through Web links

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24801682@N08/5048079859/

Browsing Linked Data

http://lucero-project.info/lb/2011/06/what-to-ask-linked-data/

External links

http://linksailor.com

Conclusion

• The benefits of exposing your research data as linked data is undeniable: allow for reuse and linking!– Still, requires efforts

• The potential of linking to other data is very promising– Connect things that don’t need to

aggregated any more. They are in the same data space: the Web…

– With which come all the issues around provenance, quality, trust, etc.

• This represents a serious conceptual shift in the way we manage and use academic/research/educational data

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markchapmanphoto/5139429152/

Think about…

data.open.ac.uk

data.gov.uk

data.ordnancesurvey.co.uk

data.archiveshub.ac.uk

www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html

data.bnf.fr

semanticweb.cs.vu.nl/lod/am/

…

Thank You!

More at:

http://lucero-project.info

@mdaquin