Linked Open Data
From ActiveArchives
Or simply Linked Data, aka the Semantic Web.
Berners-Lee's "3 rules":
- All kinds of conceptual things, they have names now that start with HTTP.
- I get important information back. I will get back some data in a standard format which is kind of useful data that somebody might like to know about that thing, about that event.
- I get back that information it's not just got somebody's height and weight and when they were born, it's got relationships. And when it has relationships, whenever it expresses a relationship then the other thing that it's related to is given one of those names that starts with HTTP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
The semantic web responds in part to the experience and success of the web. It seeks to codify the practice of web site builders. By adding a "semantic flavor" to the links in pages, the foundation is laid for create sharable data in the way the web allows for sharing pages.
The value of the relationships
Google was one of the first in building search engine algorithms to realize the value of looking at not just the content of individual pages, but in the relationships that exist between the pages in the form of links. Semantic web tries to go a step further by adding a "flavor" or label to each link (qualified links) that allows some kind of meaning or intention to be conveyed in the link. In addition, formats like RDF provide the means to define templates or constellations of relationships allowing for certain recognizable patterns to be created in the semantic links to allow for "smarter" kinds of search engines. (Another important aspect of Google however is their use of the behavioural data of people searching, creating a feedback loop of search queries to the eventual results clicked. It is interesting to think about system that use both semantic data and actual usage data.)
Relevance to cultural institutions
Sharing while maintaining autonomy
Contrast with the message "let's normalize" ... or "we offer the standards". Instead propose semantic web / linked data as a creative / playful / web-like way to ... Very quickly reduces to making heavy decisions about ontologies and choosing ontologies. (contrast with: SLIC)... in the end you get vcard+.
There is an urgency to get the Semantic Web community past the "just the facts" (and their derived facts) "hard-AI" orientation of parts of the Semantic Web community, as well as beyond the "enhanced shopping" demos from commercial applications, to thinking about Linked Open Data as:
- Making the materials of your institution available within an infrastructure that supports "web-as-collage" construction of works,
- Tactical means of distributing the particular knowledge and experience of your cultural institution,
- Ability to support cross-institutional linking within requiring a central service (such as Google) to make the links.
What's wrong with Google/YouTube/...?
- Web 2.0 services are limited by their very general purpose nature.
- The criteria by which YouTube selects "related video" will never have the focus or provide the context that a curator in a culturual institution could provide.
