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