building the open university's web of linked data
DESCRIPTION
Presentation at the Commonwealth of Learning workshop on taxonomy for education, 15-16/08/2011TRANSCRIPT
Building the Open University’s Web of Linked Data
Mathieu d’Aquin and the LUCERO team
@mdaquin
Knowledge Media Institute, the Open University
LUCERO project
lucero-project.info – data.open.ac.uk
Linked Data
• Principles and technologies for a Web of Data– Data objects uniquely identified by web
addresses: URIs– A graph data model: RDF– For linking data objects to data objects– … at the scale of the Web
• LOD cloud
The Open University• The biggest university in the UK (200,000
students)• One of the youngest (40 years)• Most teaching done at a distance• 1 campus, 13 regional centers• Committed to “Open”:
– Open educational material available as podcasts (iTunes U), units of course material (OpenLearn), etc.
• Tradition of investing in new technology for teaching, learning, knowledge sharing, etc.– Role of the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi)
So Linked Data for 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
Currently: OU public data sit in different systems – hard to discover, obtain, integrate by users.
Exposed as linked data, our data interlink with each other and the external world: become part of the “global data space” on the Web
data.open.ac.uk
The data.open.ac.uk Stack
Technical infrastructure
Organizational infrastructure
Institutional repository data
Research Data (Arts)
Applications
Planning + Logging
Collect Extract Link Store Expose
OntologiesScheduler
RSS Updater Triple Store
Delete (1)Add (2)
Index Search
SPARQLendpoint
Web Server
RSS Extractor
XML Updater
RDF Extractor
RDF Cleaner
Cleaning rules
Each datasets
Lib, courses, loc
ORO, podcast
URL redirection rules
RSS feed
New itemsObsolete items
RDF file (add) RDF file (delete)
RDF file (add) RDF file (delete)
Generic process Dataset specific process
Entity Name
SystemURI creation rules
Method for a exposing a dataset
Initial Meeting with Data Owner
- Identify data- Get sample data- Identify Copyright Issues- Identify possible links- Identify users and usage
Data Modeling sessions
Lucero Core Team
Data Owner
Lucero KMi Team
Lucero members
- Find reusable ontologies- Map onto the data- Identify uncovered parts- Define URI Scheme
Data Modeling Validation
Lucero Core Team
Data Owner
Development of Extractor
URI Creation Rules
DefinitionDeploymentLucero KMi
Team
Datasets• Already “officially” in place:
– ORO: more than 18,000 publications from OU researchers– Podcasts: 2,500 audio and video tracks from podcast.open.ac.uk,
linked to the relate courses– Study at the OU: more than 600 live module descriptions– OpenLearn: more than 550 Units of course material– KMi Staff and Planet newsletter– Open Arts Archive
• Currently being processed:– OU Buildings in MK and regional centers– Library Catalogue– YouTube channel– Old Courses– “Reading Experience Database” project – People Profiles
Links and Vocabularies• We link to
– Geonames for course availability– Education.data.gov.uk to reuse their representation of the Open University– Data.ordnancesurvey.gov.uk for postcodes of OU buildings– Dbpedia.org for Arts History dataset
• We almost only reuse vocabularies:– BIBO for publications– FOAF for people– Dublin Core for a lot of things– W3C Ontology for Media Resources for podcasts and Youtube videos– LODE (linkedevents) for events– MLO and XCRI for course description– GoodRelations for prices and offers– AIISO for organizational structure
• And connect taxonomies– The Local Open University topic categories– The iTunes U categories– The Library of Congress Subject Headings– JACS codes
Screenshot of the dataset page
Applications• For education
– Mobile podcast explorer, podcast explorer on TV – OU Building Map, OU location tracker (cf.
foursquare)– OU Expert Search– Connecting courses/OpenLearn to relevant
podcast– OU Course Profile Facebook app using list of
courses, “Study Buddy” app connecting facebook users to relevant courses
• For Research– Display connections in a research community– Research Data/Impact Analysis– Connection research datasets to external data
Example application: Link OpenLearn to relevant course/podcasts
ROLE widget
Example Application: keep track of location, meetings, tutorials, at the OU
Example application: exploring research communities
EXAMPLE APPLICATION:Expert Search using publication information and connecting to contact information within the OU
Lean-back podcast viewer
Example application: Explore Information about a person in the “Reading Experience Database” based on data provided by DBPedia (Linked Data version of Wikipedia) New ways to look at humanities research data
Where this is going
• More and more integration at the OU:– Link to podcasts, iTunes U, Youtube on
course pages in Study at the OU (Comms/Student Services/IT)
– Use in the “Course profile” Facebook Application (IT/Comms)
– RADAR: research audit/assessment using linked data (KMi[Vanessa]/Research School)
– Mobile Course/Qualification explorer (Comms)
– OU Events in RDFa (Comms)
Integrating Open Educational Material
in course descriptions
Radar
Explore
Explore the courses, qualifications and open educational resources available on a particular topic in one place.
Why is it important?• The OU has been the first University to expose its data
as linked data: http://data.open.ac.uk• Now widely recognized as a critical step forward for the
HE sector in the UK (and worldwide)– Favor transparency and reuse of data, both externally and
internally– Reduces cost of dealing with our own public data: integration
and reuse by design– Enable both new kinds of applications, and to make the
ones that are already feasible more cost effective
• Many other UK universities have now followed our example: – Lincoln, Southampton, Edinburg, Oxford, …– And others in other countries are setting up similar initiatives
(Muenster, Loja, UPM, CNR…)
Where this is going• Linked data across universities
– More and more UK and European university creating their linked data platform (following us!)
– Towards data.ac.uk?– LinkedUniversities.org – providing common
vocabularies and tools so that linked data from different universities can integrate
– Aggregation of video material from Open Educational Repositories
– Major Challenge: Common/linked categorization scheme and tag space
– Integration with Schema.org/LRMI
Thank You!
lucero-project.info
data.open.ac.uk
@mdaquin
@fzablith
PeopleCarlo Allocca
(Dev)
Mathieu d’Aquin(PD)
Salman Elahi((Ex)-Dev)
Enrico Motta(SGP)
Andriy Nikolov(linking)
Jane Whild(Admin)
Fouad Zablith(Dev)
Library Specialists
Owen Stephens(PM)
Richard Nurse((ex-)PM)
Non ScantleburyArts Specialists
Suzanne Duncanson-HunterJohn Wolfe
Paul Lawrence
Stuart Brown
Data Owners
KMi
OU Library
Com./StudentComp.Services
Arts