The document describes a project called Sèduco that aims to develop digital tools for creating and sharing educational content in Italian high schools. As part of this project, an app was created to explore Alessandro Manzoni's classic novel "I Promessi Sposi" in a richer way than a typical e-book. The app semantically annotates the text, links mentions of entities to external definitions, and allows exploration of narrative sequences and networks of characters and locations mentioned in the novel.

1. Exploring The Betrothed Lovers
ANDREA
BOLIOLI
–
CROSS
LIBRARY
SRL
MATTEO
CASU
–
CELI
SRL
MAURIZIO
LANA
-­‐
UNIVERSITÀ
DEGLI
STUDI
DEL
PIEMONTE
ORIENTALE
RENATO
RODA
–
UNIVERSITÀ
DI
TORINO

2. Sèduco
(Sharing
EDUcaDonal
COntent)
aims
to
study,
develop
and
test
digital
tools
for
the
creaDon,
management
and
sharing
of
educaDonal
contents
in
the
italian
upper
secondary
school
(age
14
to
18).
The
Promessi
Sposi
App
in
the
context
of
Sèduco
CELI
srl
–
Turin,
Italy
Cross
Library
srl
–
Trento,
Italy
spinoff
Celi/FBK
(Bruno
Kessler
FoundaDon)

3. • Educa,onal
objec,ve:
classics
are
perceived
as
boring!
–
and
o[en
they
are
not
…
• Business
objec,ve:
going
beyond
the
concept
of
e-­‐book
Provide
an
applicaDon
for:
• The
explora,on
of
rich
contents
• The
discovery
of
hidden
informaDon
Apply
semanDcs
and
SNA
to
a
classic
Why?
How?
Divise
an
architecture
to
make
it
repeatable
with
low
costs
With
a
constraint

4. • “I
Promessi
Sposi”
(1827)
is
a
classic
of
italian
literature
by
Alessandro
Manzoni
(1785
–
1873)
–
historical
novel
set
in
1628,
during
the
Spanish
dominaDon
(parallel
to
Austrian
dominaDon
during
Manzoni’s
Dme)
• Historical
novel
represenDng
the
cultural
and
linguisDc
unity
of
Italy
• It
is
studied
(mandatory)
in
the
second
year
of
italian
high
schools
What
The Betrothed
is
Curiosi,es
• The
translaDon
of
the
Dtle
in
“The
Betrothed
Lovers”
comes
from
the
first
review
by
E.A.Poe
(1835)
• I
Promessi
Sposi
was
inspired
by
Scok’s
Ivanhoe
(1819)

5. The Betrothed
as
a
semanDc
mashup

6. • segmentaDon
at
the
level
of
paragraphs
(indexed
in
the
Celi
semanDc
search
engine)
• annotaDon
of
the
novel
for
enDty
menDons
(persons
and
locaDons,
automated
task)
and
narraDve
sequences
(unit
of
Dme/place/acDon,
manual
task)
• two
NER
tools
-­‐-­‐
TextPro
by
FBK
and
Sophia
Seman,c
Engine
by
CELI
• the
automaDc
annotaDon
was
manually
corrected
CreaDon
of
the
applicaDon
• During
the
creaDon
of
I
Promessi
Sposi
we
learned
some
lessons…

7. Structural
annota,ons:
XML-­‐based
-­‐-­‐
there
are
limits
(e.g.
non-­‐overlapping
annotaDons)
Named-­‐en,,es
annota,ons:
poor
-­‐-­‐
only
recently
TEI
introduced
the
use
of
keys
Indexing:
choose
a
level
of
granularity
(paragraphs)
Architecture
We
want
the
architecture
to
be
reusable
for
any
novel:
• arbitrary
annotaDon/segmentaDon
of
porDons
of
text
(chapters,
sequences,
dialogue
lines,
“like”
…
)
• Link
text
annotaDons
with
externally-­‐defined
enDDes
• The
index
does
not
mirror
a
parDcular
annotaDon
Generaliza,on
Tradi,onal
methodology

8. Architecture

9. Ontological
Model
We
reused
Linked
Open
Vocabularies
(foaf,
geoNames
ontology,
SPAR
ontologies).
• FRBR’s
disDncDon
between
a
Work,
its
Expressions
(different
revisions)
and
its
ManifestaDons
(ediDons)
to
enable
cross-­‐ediDon
analyDcs
• Discourse
elements
(chapters,
paragraphs)
are
fixed
(by
the
author)
• Sequences:
narraDve
(incl.
dialogues
and
monologues),
descripDve
or
reflexive
-­‐
in
many-­‐to-­‐many
relaDon
with
paragraphs.
NarraDve
sequences
are
linked
to
characters
which
act
in
them,
and
to
speakers
• Characters
are
persons
or
groups
,
with
links
between
groups
and
their
members
–
are
actors
or
speakers
in
sequences.
The
noDon
of
character
is
not
a
class,
but
a
role
played
by
an
Agent
in
a
Work.
• Loca,ons:
can
be
municipaliDes
(such
as
Milan,
Lecco),
relaDve
locaDons
(e.g.
Lucia’s
house),
indefinite
locaDons
("near
Lecco”),
journeys
-­‐-­‐
change
status
over
,me
(e.g.
the
home
of
Lucia
was
in
Acquate,
formerly
a
municipality,
now
a
neighboroud
in
Lecco)
• Contribu,ons
(images,
web
documents)
can
be
added
by
students
–
they
can
be
linked
to
any
enDty
in
the
model.

10. Learning
and
Social
Aspects
• Students
and
teachers
contributed
in
the
creaDon
process:
• Searching
for
images
• SegmentaDon
in
narraDve
sequences
• Research
on
different
maps
for
the
visualizaDon
of
the
locaDons
in
different
Dmes
• And
in
its
maintaining:
• contribute
with
images,
works
about
characters,
etc.

11. Social
Network
AnalyDcs
1. ConversaDonal
network
• Nodes
and
edges
are
weighted:
weight
=
number
of
dialogues
in
which
the
characters
are
involved
2. NarraDve
network
• Edges
idenDfy
co-­‐occurrence
of
characters
in
the
same
narra,ve
sequence
Extrac,on
of
two
interac,onal
networks

12. Detail:
NarraDve
Sequences

13. Detail:
Characters

14. Detail:
LocaDons

15. Detail:
CollocaDons

16. Detail:
ConversaDonal
Network
• Renzo
is
central
w.r.t.
dialogue
interacDons.
• Clusters
emerge:
heroes
/
villains
/
supporDng
characters

17. Detail:
NarraDve
Network
• Lucia
is
a
more
acDon-­‐oriented
figure
• Again,
clusters
emerge

18. Next
Steps
• We
are
enhancing
the
search
experience
of
I
Promessi
Sposi
with
structure
expected
by
our
model
(e.g.
locaDons
hierarchy)
• We
are
applying
the
process
from
scratch
to
new
novels
• Next?
Ø Unleash
sem
web
techniques:
use
a
triple
store
with
inference
enabled,
link
enDDes
to
the
LOD
cloud
…
I
Promessi
Sposi
was
born
together
with
the
design
and
refinement
of
the
architecture

19. Thank
you