exposing humanities data for reuse and linking - red, linked data and the semantic web

Exposing Humanities Data for Reuse and Linking

RED, linked data and the semantic web

Mathieu d’Aquin

Knowledge Media Institute, the Open University

LUCERO project, http://data.open.ac.uk

Motivation… • From my rather ignorant perspective, humanities

research = collecting data and using it for research and teaching

• RED is obviously a perfect example of this• Challenges:

– How do we expose this data in such way that it makes all the potential uses of it feasible

– How do we expose this data so that it can connect to other collections, open information resources, etc.

– How do we benefit from other information resources to enrich this data, derive new research questions, connect it to aspects not originally thought about…

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 with to other Data

Linked Data

Linked Data at the OU?

ORO

Archive of Course Material

Library’sCatalogueOf Digital Content

OpenLearnContent

A/V MaterialPodcastsiTunesU

Data from Research Outputs

BBC

DBPedia

DBLP

RAE

geonames

data.gov.uk

data.open.ac.uk

Example Application

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

• RED: an early example exploring the potential of linked data for humanities research

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

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