Persistent organisation identifiers continue to be a much needed but ‘not-quite-there’ piece of identifier infrastructure. They are required at many stages of the research production to credit institutions for their contributions, including funding, authorship and publishing.
There are multiple identifier providers with differing representations and coverage. Some but not all of these providers link to other identifiers, but all do so in different and proprietary manner making mapping between them difficult. In addition, the identified organisations themselves need to be able to assert information about themselves without needing to manage multiple relationships. This results in a very complex landscape that makes organisation identifiers difficult to utilise to their full potential.
In this session we will discuss how organisation identifiers and their metadata could be represented using LOD by the organisations themselves. We will also consider if LOD can help link the disparate organisation identifier providers so that they can be crosswalked and used interchangeably. If a solution to these problems already exists then we will examine the barriers that have prevented its adoption and how they might be overcome.
Background reading and current work on organisation identifiers can be found through the Organisation Identifier Working Group. The group was formed in early 2017 to refine the structure, principles, and technology specifications for an open, independent, non-profit organization identifier registry to facilitate the disambiguation of researcher affiliations.
In recent years, the lowered cost of 3D capture (photogrammetric software, processing power, availability of drones, etc.) has led to an explosion of 3D models within the cultural heritage sector. These models range from artifacts to architecture to archaeological excavations (trenches and full sites), and are produced by GLAM organizations themselves or often by individuals visiting museums. Some content producers rely on commercial entities such as Sketchfab for publication, and others are attempting to build 3D dissemination into their institutional repositories. I have been critical of these efforts, not because I disagree with their value, but because so many entities have moved forward with mass production before considering long-term preservation and access. Presently, 3D data integration into the wider CH cloud suffers from the following:
No agreed-upon standard for the model and texture files themselves (obj is the closest thing)
No standard for technical metadata
No standard for annotation of features in three dimensions
No standard APIs to rely on for getting the files or analyzing them in some capacity
I have begun to experiment with a proof of concept integration of 3D models from Sketchfab into a few Linked Open Data projects, namely extending the Nomisma.org data model with a proposed Europeana Data Model extension for 3D that was presented at ALA. As part of the proof of concept, two models of coins were incorporated into Online Coins of the Roman Empire (see http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.4.sa.455 for example), and you can read more about the entire process here.
I myself am not a content producer, but a middleman developer attempting to build a bridge between content producers and the scholars (and general public) that will ultimately make use of these materials. A scholar will not go to every possible Sketchfab profile or institutional repository to dig around for 3D models of relevant artifacts–they should expect to find them in portals for specific materials (like Roman imperial coins or Greek pottery) or through broader aggregations like Europeana and DPLA.
Following the success of the IIIF spec and the community behind it, I hope that we can take some time at LODLAM to discuss laying the foundation for a similar community that might bring order to the chaos of 3D cultural heritage models.
The church cloister, courtesy of San Servolo – Metropolitan Services of Venice
The Island of San Servolo is composed of a large architectural complex and a lovely park. The island was a monastic seat for a thousand years, then it housed psychiatric patients until the hospital’s closing following the psychiatric reform of 1978. Its first settlement dates back to the 17th century, when a group of Benedictine monks took refuge on the narrow and marshy island. In 1647, the complex was given to a group of Benedictine, Dominican and Franciscan nuns from the island of Candia. Next, the Senate of the Venetian Republic decided to use the Island of San Servolo to house the many injured who fled the clashes with the Turks. Medical services were provided by the Padri Ospedalieri di San Giovanni di Dio, now known as Fatebenefratelli. From that time on, the island’s history became closely linked with the authorities’ attitude toward disabling illnesses in general, and mental illness in particular. The Province of Venezia, now known as the Metropolitan City of Venice, retained ownership of the island. In the 1990s, it began an architectural recovery programme to protect and promote it through its in-house company, San Servolo – Servizi Metropolitani di Venezia.
Our Sponsored Dinner will take place on the Island of San Servolo, on Wednesday, at 7:30 pm.
The ‘Open’ in Linked Open Data has been key to its successful spread as a data resource enabler, for those wishing to build upon and extend the value of others for the benefit of their projects in particular, and the whole web in general – 1,130+ datasets referenced in the Linking Open Data Cloud providing evidence of this success.
Openly licensed – Openly made available for access – Openly described with Open ontologies – often Open for query. To those within the LOD & LODLAM communities this all makes perfect sense, but what about those in the wider web world who do not share our understanding and enthusiasm?
As a result of encouragement from the major search engines an others, 10s of millions of websites have deployed open structured data, based upon linked data principles, on billions of pages, using generic vocabularies. Their objective being to increase the discoverability of the resources those pages describe.
Based upon the assumption that one of the reasons for describing LAM resources using LOD is to help people find them; what should we do?
Nothing – let the search engines worry about discovery
Share structured data on our resource web pages
Using our LOD ontologies
Using Schema.org
Using a mixture of both
Use generic vocabularies such as Schema.org instead of our domain specific ontologies
This session would provide an opportunity to explore and discuss these issues.
I would like to propose a session to review and update an initiative that came out of the LODLAM Summit 2015 in Sydney.
Interest was expressed in Sydney in exploring how data, about resources held within archives, could be widely shared on the web, to aid discovery, using the Schema.org vocabulary. The intention being to emulate the successful efforts in the bibliographic domain by the Schema Bib Extend W3C Community Group that resulted n the bib.schema.org extension to the main schema.org vocabulary and its supporting documentation.
A W3C Community Group – Schema Architypes – was set up, chaired by myself. Recent activity in the group has centred around a ‘straw man’ proposal for a small number of new terms to extend Schema.org that would enable the description of archive holding organisations, archives/fonds, and the resources they contain.
The session would provide the opportunity to review the proposal, the intention that underpins it, and contribute to and engage with the discussion to move it forward.
A working group of the PREMIS Editorial Committee is revising version 1 of the PREMIS OWL ontology, which is based on the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata version 2.2. The new ontology reflects PREMIS version 3, which was a major revision of the Data Dictionary and it is a substantial remodeling. The goal has been to reflect current Linked Data best practices and reuse other well-known ontologies where possible. There have been several requests to be able to incorporate it into Fedora and Hydra.
We would like to present the ontology in its current state (it is almost completed so that it can go out as a draft for community review) and show some of our modeling choices to get feedback from LOD experts. One area that has resulted in a lot of discussion is Rights information, especially in trying to bring in what seemed to be the most appropriate rights ontology, ODRL, and the relationship between the PREMIS ontology and rightsstatements.org. Another area in which we’d like to get feedback is the relationship between the ontology and the preservation controlled vocabularies at http://id.loc.gov/preservationdescriptions/ and specifically the practice of reusing controlled vocabulary terms as subclasses or subproperties of the ontology.
Just what exactly does it mean to “pitch a session”?
Pitch Ahead of the Summit
As part of getting ready for the Summit we encourage people to pitch sessions (by activating their user account on the LODLAM site) before we all meet in Venice. These accounts appear under Delegates/Profiles in the main menu of the LODLAM 2017 website.
Close up of Kid Nichols grip [ca. 1901]. Boston Public Library.
The email address you supplied in your application to come to the Summit will be associated with your user account for the site and you can login and put your pitch into a post now and if you’re a Twitter user, post that out, so others know what you’re thinking about.
Here’s an example: Adrian Pohl has user name (acka47), his user profile is active, and he has pitched a session proposal already about documenting linked open data.
Pitch At the Summit
At the beginning of both days there’s a marketplace of sessions which we’ll all come up with together, a mix of those we have already put forward before the summit (on the website) and those we create on the spot. On the day, this involves, standing up, and summarising your session and then writing down the session name (and your name) on a post-it note, to put up on the board. Pitching is just amazing (because people have incredible ideas!) and it happens really quickly.
So it is a good idea to have some key messages for those you want to draw into your session. What the session is about (the topics and discussion points you want to cover or collaborative action you want to take) and and who might be interested in joining in with you (whether you want to hack or yack, people with passion for your latest LODLAM mission, or expertise in XYZ).
Once we are done with the pitching process, these session proposals will be clustered and sorted by organisers, and then we’ll all vote. We take this approach so we can figure out which sessions might be of general interest and need a big space, or focused and need a smaller space, to work together in.
This insures that the issues that are most important to us, many of which are evolving as we prepare to travel or get ready to speak, will be addressed in a dynamic, collegial and constructive environment.
The Summit schedule is a framework, which may continue to change a little through the meeting. The start and end times are the only things that won’t change at this point. The flexible schedule will be updated on a wall during the meeting so that delegates can always find the sessions of most interest to them (of which there will be no shortage of!!).
Should I have a presentation prepared?
No. Come with questions, ideas, passion, but not presentations, to do your pitching with.
Dork Shorts/Speedos
The only exception here is that we will have one session period at the end of the day on Wednesday for 2 minute “dork shorts” to borrow a term from THATCamp.org (or “speedos” if you’re an Australian). These short talks are timed, 2 minute lightning briefs, that everyone will have a chance to get up and have a go. This session is a great opportunity to tell the group what you’re working on. Remember, technology doesn’t always work on the day, so have any video/screenshots, etc loaded onto your computer to share, and BYOD (bring your own dongle).
Open Space Technology
We’re utilising Open Space Technology (Wikipedia) as the format to run this summit. Put simply pitching falls into items 3 and 4:
a broad, open invitation which articulates the purpose of the meeting;
participants’ chairs arranged in a circle;
a “bulletin board” of issues and opportunities posted by participants;
a “marketplace” with many break-out spaces that participants move freely between, learning and contributing as they “shop” for information and ideas;
a “breathing” or “pulsation” pattern of flow, between plenary and small-group breakout sessions.
What about linked open data (LOD) is on your mind?
Is there a session you want to lead or join in on when we gather at the Cini Foundation?
Why get in early with a session proposal?
To share your INSPIRATION, PERSPIRATION, and IMAGINATION.
Venezia by gnuckx CC0
If the answer to any of the following questions is in the affirmative then maybe it is time to submit a session proposal.
Do you have a wonderful, crazy LOD idea burning in your thoughts?
Are you dazed when looking at integrating persistent identifiers into your LOD?
Should disambiguation and sameAs relationships ever be linked together in the same sentence?
Have you been using LOD to help you answer a research question and you have a ton of insight to share?
Are you using LOD to breakdown data silos for resource discovery?
Is there a LOD project challenge you would like more people involved in?
Here’s the more plain-speaking answer:
A session proposal lays out for the whole LODLAM community (including delegates at the Summit) questions and opportunities that might be of interest. At the Summit it is possible for delegates to share ideas and problem solve as we network and as we go into breakouts. Signalling ahead by sketching out a session proposal before and during the summit, has been a useful way for people share their complex technical problems, data-obsessions, semantic conundrums, and what happens in our collective imagination.
Delegates that have set up their profiles on the website can post a session now. If you are delegate and you haven’t gotten around to this, or need a little help, please be in touch: LODLAM2017 [at] gmail [dot] com
There are 86 nations participating with exhibitions in the historic pavilions in the Giardini at the Arsenale – and – in the historic city centre of Venice.
Here, dear delegates, following, you can find the links to websites published by many of your own countries, showing artworks in the Biennale exhibitions. Moreover on May 5th the Financial Times published a “what to see at the Venice Biennale 2017”. Among the exhibitions recommended that are part of the Venice Biennale, the FT suggests checking out the Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol at the Giorgio Cini Foundation! Right on the doorstep of where we will all be gathering to talk about linked open data, cultural heritage, and digital humanities.
The Art News goes a little deeper describing all the exhibitions opening in June at the Cini Foundation.
We suggest also having a quick scan of The Guardian review on Venice Biennale 2017
On display, until November 26th, outside the Ca’Sagredo Hotel in Venice, Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn‘s wonderful “Support” sculpture featuring two large hands emerging from the Grand Canal for the Venice art biennale 2017. The massive sculpture aims to make a statement on the effects of global warming.
Plenty of great art to take in, while you’re at the international 2017 LODLAM Summit in Venice!
The competition for this year LODLAM challenge was really tough!
We received in total 21 entries really demonstrating brilliance, innovation and creativity. We can be proud of our community.
Budapest from “Hungary and Transylvania; with remarks on their condition, social, political and economical, The British Library, Public Domain, http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/9200387/BibliographicResource_3000117278272.html
The five finalists invited to present their work in Venice and running for the final prizes are (in no particular order):
The call for challenges entries is closed and it is now time to vote. Which LOD project highlights the most innovative ideas, the most interesting data sets, the best visualisation ? Tell us which one is your favourite by adding your ratings on challenge entries’ pages.
The five finalists will be invited to pitch their project during the LODLAM Summit in Venice (28- 29 June) and to a panel of judges who will choose the two winning teams. More details at http://lodlam.dev.ascdc.tw/summit2017/challenge/
L’urne, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Public Domain http://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/9200365/BibliographicResource_3000022691833.html
![Close up of Kid Nichols grip [ca. 1901]. Boston Public Library.](https://web.archive.org/web/20171213200659im_/https://summit2017.lodlam.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/commonwealth-sf268708r_access800-213x300.jpg)
