SEA CHANGE Linking Data about the Past through Geography

Rainer Simon @aboutgeo Austrian Institute of Technology

Leif Isaksen, Pau de Soto University of Southampton

Elton Barker The Open University

December 11 2014 | DM2E Final Event, Pisa, Italy

Early Geospatial Documents

Maps and geographic writing predating 1492.

The problem: Data is “semantically opaque”. Geographical context evident to humans, but not machines.

Two public workshops to • trial our geo-annotation tool RECOGITO • reach out to the community • turn some raw data into Linked Open Data… • …and have fun doing it!

RECOGITO Geo-Annotation Tool

http://pelagios.org/recogito/docs

Workshop #1

University of Heidelberg, October 31. 27 students of Geography & Archaeology.

Workshop #1

University of Heidelberg, October 31. Classical & Medieval Latin texts, Medieval maps.

Some Numbers…

• 2.650 places identified in text • 2.500 places identified in maps • 830 map transcriptions • 140 gazetteer resolutions • 490 other actions (edits, comments, deletions,…)

6.620 contributions total on that day!

Ptolemy, Nicolaus Tedescho & Francesco Berlinghieri: Tabvla secvnda de Evropa (1482).

Workshop #2

University of Applied Sciences Mainz, December 4. 22 students, mixed background (engineering/archaeology).

Workshop #2

University of Applied Sciences Mainz, December 4. Medieval travel writing & 14th/15thC. maritime maps.

More Numbers…

• 2.600 places identified in text • 3.200 places identified in maps ! • 620 map transcriptions • 544 gazetteer resolutions ! • 537 other actions (edits, comments, deletions,…)

7.511 contributions total on that day!

Workshops, Part II: Data Re-Use

Tutorials for using our data without our tools. Example 1: Exploring Medieval itineraries in GIS.

Workshops, Part II: Data Re-Use

Example 2: Hacking with our data – maps, timelines, networks.

So… What‘s Next?

Introducing PELAGIOS

• Linking Data about the past based on the notion of Place

• Connectivity through Common References

• 40+ partners from 6 countries

• Heterogenous resources: images, texts, databases, etc.

• De-centralized: publish your own data, share the principles

(and there’s some RDF involved, too…)

• We are currently working on an API for search & discovery

http://pelagios-project.blogspot.co.uk

So many ways to get involved :-)

• Download our data from Recogito • Experiment with our API (warning: unfinished) • Become a Recogito editor • Become a Pelagios partner!

Thank you for your attention http://pelagios-project.blogspot.co.uk http://pelagios.org/recogito http://github.com/pelagios @pelagiosproject Grateful acknowledgement to JISC, AHRC, the DM2E project, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and all Pelagios partners.