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
Top Related