Seminar given at KMi, the Open University about the LUCERO project (http://lucero-project.info) and the process of building http://data.open.ac.uk. Video available at http://stadium.open.ac.uk/1570

1. Building the Open University’s Web
of Linked Data
http://lucero-project.info
Mathieu d’Aquin

2. Linked Data
• As set of principles and technologies
for a Web of Data
– Putting the “raw” data online in a
standard representation (RDF)
– Make the data Web addressable
(URIs)
– Link with to other Data

3. Linked Data

4. Linked Data at the OU?
ORO
Archive of
Course
Material
Library’s
Catalogue
Of Digital
Content
OpenLearn
Content
A/V Material
Podcasts
iTunesU
Data from
Research
Outputs
BBC
DBPedia
DBLP
RAE
geonames
data.gov.uk

5. Goals of the project (visually)
Technical infrastructure
Organizationalinfrastructure
Institutional repository data
Research Data (Arts)
Applications

6. Institutional Datasets
• Open Research Online (ORO)
• Library catalogue
• Study at the OU
• iTunesU/OU Podcasts
• Staff profiles
• OpenLearn
• Estate Information

7. Research datasets
• Looking at how specific research
databases can benefit from being
linked to the institutional repositories
• Case studies in Arts:
– Classical Receptions in Drama and
Poetry in English
– Open Arts Archive
– Encyclopedia of Global Commodities
– Hestia
– Reading Experience Database
– The South-Asians Making Britain
project
Research
Data
OU linked
data cloud
Web of
data

8. Planning + Logging
Collect Extract Link Store Expose
OntologiesScheduler
RSS Updater
Delete (1)
Add (2)
Search
SPARQL
endpoint
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 items
Obsolete items
RDF file (add)
RDF file (delete)
RDF file (add)
RDF file (delete)
Generic process Dataset specific process
Entity
Name
System
URI creation
rules

9. First Version of
data.open.ac.uk
with 2 datasets:
ORO and
Podcasts

10. Dataset: ORO
• Open Research Online
• Scientific publications with at least one
member of the Open University as co-
author
• Original System based on ePrints
• Export to RDF using the BiBO
Ontology
• Post-processing/cleaning
• 13,283 Articles/12 Patents/340,000
triples

12. Dataset: Podcast
• Extracted from RSS feeds at
http://podcast.open.ac.uk
• Using W3C Media Ontology, FOAF,
DCT, Media RDF, etc.
• Provides connections to courses
and topics
• 1,664 Video Podcasts/1,325 Audio
Podcasts/75,000 triples

14. Workflow for a given 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
Definition
Deployment
Lucero KMi
Team

15. Ongoing Dataset: Courses<saou_course_data>
<Course> type: courseware:Course, aiiso:Module
<CourseCode>D240</CourseCode> URI of the object :http://data.open.ac.uk/course/d240 (+ in property aiiso:code)
<CourseTitle>Counselling: exploring fear and sadness</CourseTitle> // courseware:has-title, aiiso:name, rdfs:label, dct:title
<OUCourseLevel>2</OUCourseLevel> // new property oco:OUCourseLevel (domain aiiso:Module, range: int).
<CourseUGPG>Undergraduate</CourseUGPG> // new property oco:courseLevel (domain aiiso:Module, range: CourseLevel).
// New Class CourseLevel, 2 instances http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/undergraduate || http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/postgraduate
<CourseStatus>L</CourseStatus> // courseware:is-taught-present = true // will need additional checks for making courses unlive...
<ScottishLevel>8</ScottishLevel> // new property: oco:SCQFLevel (d aiiso:module r int)
<CreditPoints>30</CreditPoints> // oco:number-of-credits subpropertyof courseware:number-of-credits
<ECTSCreditPoints>15</ECTSCreditPoints> // oco:eu-number-of-credits subpropertyof courseware:number-of-credits
// (label for ey-number-of-credits = "Number of credits according to the ECTS)
<QAACode>5</QAACode> // new property: oco:FHEQLevel (d aiiso:module r int)
<IsCPD>N</IsCPD> // if N, do nothing, if Y than type of course is oco:CPDModule (subclassof aiiso:Module and courseware:Course)
<IsOnline>N</IsOnline> // if N do nothing, if Y type is oco:OnlineCourse (subclass of aiiso:Module and courseware:Course) and
// if code.contains("ZX"), oco:isOnlineVersionOf=http://data.../course/<code.replaceAll("ZX","")>
<FacultyUnitCode>FD15</FacultyUnitCode> // URI: http://data.open.ac.uk/faculty/fd15 = new instance of aiiso:Faculty
<FacultyUnitName>Social Sciences</FacultyUnitName> // rdfs:label for the faculty
// course to faculty linked by http://purl.org/vocab/aiiso/schema#responsibleFor + courseware:involves-organization
// + course courseware#taught-at http://data.open.ac.uk/organization/the_open_university
<ResidentialSchool>N</ResidentialSchool> // if Y: oco:hasAssociatedEventType http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/event/residentialSchool
// (type: oco:EducationalEventType)
<ResidentialSchoolType>No residential school</ResidentialSchoolType> // if No residential school = nothing
// if Embedded residential school oco:hasAssociatedEventType http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/event/embeddedResidentialSchool
// (which is oco:subEventType residentialSchool)
// Stand-alone residential school oco:hasAssociatedEventType http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/event/standAloneResidentialSchool
// (which is oco:subEventType residentialSchool)
<NumberOfCMAs /> // if 0 or nothing do nothing, else courseware:has-assesment-method http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/assessment/cma
// (which is type courseware:Assessment-Method)
<Exam>End-of-course assessment</Exam> // if No examination do nothing
// if End-of-course assessment courseware:has-assesment-method http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/assessment/end-of-course-assessment
// (which is type courseware:Assessment-Method)
// if Examination courseware:has-assesment-method http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/assessment/examination
(which is type courseware:Assessment-Method)
<ECMAsTotal /> // if 0 or nothing do nothing, else courseware:has-assesment-method http://data.open.ac.uk/saou/assessment/ecma

16. Course RDF representation: Basics
…

17. Course RDF representation: Locations
…

18. Course RDF representation: Prices

19. http://data.open.ac.uk/course/l240

20. Applications
• Plan for development of specific
applications targeting:
– Students: in finding resources related to
courses, topics, and helping selecting
courses to enroll to
– Researchers: Identify interesting
connections/research questions from
research data linked to OU/external
sources
• Already a number of (more generic)
applications emerging…

21. Faceted
Browsing

22. Social Learn
• …
SocialLearn
(Recommendation)

23. Next
• More data, more data, more data…
– Info about buildings (estate), course material (Library),
open educational content (OpenLearn), People
(AACS/IT), Anything else?
• Links, Links, Links…
– Internal links based on common URI Scheme
– Current experiments on linking people, conferences,
journals
– Automatic discovery of links
• Applications, Applications, Applications
– A killer app (SocialLearn? Research Data?)
– Many, many small usages (publication and courses in
people profiles, “related material” in course pages,
annotation, etc.)
– Anything KMi can come up with!?

24. Conclusion
“[data.open.ac.uk] is the first launched of its
kind in UK Universities”
“hopefully this is the first of many
data.foo.ac.uk to come!”
“if you are working in an IT department within
a University you better read this report, as
soon your department will need to be
making these same decisions.”
David Flanders,
JISCExpo Programme Manager,
http://code.google.com/p/jiscexpo/wiki/luceroproject#Site_Visit_Report

25. Conclusion
• We believe linked open data to be
essential to the OU, so it needs
support:
– To ensure a sustainable framework to
expose, maintain, update and evolve
Open Linked University Data
– To adopt the practices of exposing data a
common, reusable, open way through
data.open.ac.uk
– To develop the applications that will show
the benefit of the technology

26. Thanks!
Carlo 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 Scantlebury
Arts Specialists
Suzanne Duncanson-Hunter
John Wolffe
Paul Lawrence
Stuart Brown
Data Owners
KMi
OU Library
Com./
Student
Comp.
Services
Arts