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The VRC Project Towards a cataloguing standard for open data Alick Macdonnel McLean Augusto Palombini fabrizio giudici

The VRC Project

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Page 1: The VRC Project

The VRC ProjectTowards a cataloguing standard

for open data

Alick Macdonnel McLeanAugusto Palombini

fabrizio giudici

Page 2: The VRC Project

• Origins and philosophy of SUF Media Lab/VRC: open data, the community

• Commonality of interests between VRC original users and archaeologists

• Technical realization with open source tools

Agenda

temple of Diana, Cefalù, photo A.M. McLean

Page 3: The VRC Project

Origins and philosophy of SUF Media Lab/VRC: open data, community

Page 4: The VRC Project

• institutional origins of the VRC at SUF

• modest origins

• pool slide collections when digitizing

• catalog across disciplines

• each faculty agrees to share data and images with others

Origins and Philosophy

Page 5: The VRC Project

• extensible, rich cataloging blessing and challenge

• extend pool of catalogers by extending pool of users/institutions

• expand based on original model

• distribute program in exchange for user engagement in data community through cataloging and image contributions

Data community

Page 6: The VRC Project

Commonality of interests between VRC original users

and archaeologists

Page 7: The VRC Project

• Commonality of interest between VRC original users and archaeologists:

• public utility of open data and transparency of processes

• flexible classification as a powerful research tool

Common Interests?

Page 8: The VRC Project

Advantages:● diffusion of standard models

● easy queries on fields

Problems:● adapting the same model to different elements

● problems in defining standard chronological notations

Archaeological catalogation:the state of the art

Traditional approach: Forcingdifferent objects into a main

classification scheme

Page 9: The VRC Project

Another fundamental problem● “hard defined” relationships

among different attributes don't allow their changing through time

and the spread of new properties and classification criteria

Archaeological catalogation:the state of the art

Traditional approach: Forcingdifferent objects into a main

classification scheme

Page 10: The VRC Project

ontologic VS episthemologic aspect of classification.

Classification as euristhic tool

“L'eidos è un dato o un posto? lo trovo nella cosa o lo applico alla cosa per renderla intelligibile?” ...“Si è irrigidita l'esperienza in un modello; nulla dal punto di vista epistemologico interviene ancora per affermare o negare che l'esperienza contenesse anche gli aspetti che ne sono stati isolati, accanto a infiniti altri tipi di correlazione”

(U.Eco, la Strutttura assente, 1968)

Page 11: The VRC Project

Technical realizationwith open source tools

Page 12: The VRC Project

VRC - Structure

● Components:– Cataloguing core– Web interface– Modules for integration with rich-clients– Photographic module

● manages: metadata, “camera raw” formats, grid computing, etc...

● Entirely written in Java– Cross-platform, Linux-ready

Page 13: The VRC Project

Entities and Relations

● Art objects (paintings, sculptures, buildings,...)

● Agents (painters, sponsors, owners, ...)

● Locations (geographical, geopolitical, historical, ...)

● Materials● GPS tags● Other information

● Relates entities to entities and entities to files

● Basic relationships– “Made by”, “Owned

by”, “Located at”, ...● Temporal relationships

– Associated to date ranges

– Date precision: from d/m/y to century or era

Page 14: The VRC Project

Database vs Semantic Web

● DB: entity and relations– ad-hoc– local, not universal– different DB-based systems are “islands”

● Semantic Web– RDF: Resource Description Framework– Subject / Relation / Object– XML based– FLOSS resources: Jena,

SPARQL● RDF as a “lingua franca”● Peer-to-peer search

Page 15: The VRC Project

“Ontologies”

● Data models with relations– classes– attributes– relations

● OWL – Web Ontology Language● Standard ontologies● More can be defined

– Requires pool of expert, agreement

Page 16: The VRC Project

An example

Page 17: The VRC Project

• what does SUF need to go open source?

• sharing high-quality, vetted data for sites across Italy and the world

• extension of data across institutions, disciplines, geography and time

• how to structure data community?

• concerns of SUF

• concerns of all data community members

• how to express interest in VRC data community:

• write [email protected]

Concluding Remarks

Alick McLean and Emily Schiavone, media librarian

Villa Rossa & garden, Syracuse University in Florence

Page 18: The VRC Project

• Prof. Alick Macdonnel McLean

Syracuse [email protected]://www.syr.fi.it/study-abroad-florence-media-lab.php

• Dr. Augusto Palombini

CNR VHLab [email protected]

• Ing. Fabrizio Giudici

TidalWave / [email protected]