This module is led by Lynda Hardman, and runs from 27 until 31 August 2007.
Large amounts of information are available on the Web. More
and more information, however, is becoming available on the
Semantic Web.
How can we use the explicit relations encoded in this
content to improve the user interaction with the information?
How can we make use of these relations to present the
information to the user in an appropriate way?
What are the enabling Semantic Web technologies, what do they
enable and what help can they provide?
| Mon 27 | 10:00 Goals of module, course
introduction (see also inaugural speech).
Semantic Web introduction. Start assignment 1. |
| Tue 28 | Complete assignment 1. 10:00 Semantic search. Facet browsing in /facet - watch the movie and follow the slides. mSpace, CHIP and /facet. Start assignment 2. |
| Wed 29 | Work on assignment 2. |
| Thu 30 |
Complete assignment 2.
11:00 Meaningful presentations, Vox Populi talk and demo. SampLe interface mockup. Bringing NewsML2 into the Semantic Web. Start group work on assignment 3. |
| Fri 31 |
Continue work on assignment 3.
13:30 Present work on assignment 3 to group. Finalise work on and write report for assignment 3. |
The goal of the assignment is to explore the relationship between potential questions users may have and how they can find the information from existing web sites. The example domain is cultural heritage collections.
Explore the provided example cultural heritage web sites and write an analysis (a brief description of what you are discussing, along with the advantages and the disadvantages) of the following:
Use the following sites for your analysis:
the Rijksmuseum
collection,
Louvre,
The Artchive then click
on the Mona Lisa image.
Think of some questions you would like the answer to from each of
the sites. Write about your experiences in finding the answer.
Try using search facilities on the site. Try exploring the site
through navigation.
Given the information available from these three sites, how
would you want to access all the information?
Write down one or two questions whose answer requires information
from at least two of the sites.
Write down an example of extra information you would want that
is not available from these three sites.
Produce your report in HTML of approximately 2 pages (max. 1000 words). Illustrations are desirable, and can be linked to or included. Publish the report on your web page and email the URL to Lynda.Hardman@cwi.nl before 10:30am Tuesday 28 August 2007.
The goal of this assignment is to explore experimental interfaces facilitated by underlying ontologies.
For all displays to work for the Eculture demo you should install
Firefox 2.0 or later (as described at the beginning of the
tutorial).
The relation search in the Eculture project is a prototype which demonstrates
how two entities (artefacts, people, places, concepts, etc.) can
be related with each other. A user can specify two items of
interest, e.g. two artefacts, or an artefact and a person. The
system then provides several relationships as a result. See the
tutorial
for further explanation. If you encounter any bugs in the
system then we would be grateful for a description of them.
Please send them to Alia.Amin@cwi.nl.
Think of some questions you would like the answer to.
Use the different facilities from the different systems and provide comments on which were
helpful and how.
Write down two questions whose answer requires linking more than
two pieces of information.
Comment on the very different interfaces of these
sites.
How would you improve these interfaces? Is there other functionality you would like to see added?
Produce the report in HTML of approximately 3 pages (max. 1500 words). Illustrations are desirable, and can be linked to or included. Publish the report on your web page and email the URL to Lynda.Hardman@cwi.nl before 11:00 Thursday 30 August 2007.
You are the representative of a start-up company that develops
semantic web technology. You are asked to
work on a design for a client by the company. Select one of the
following scenarios, or create your own.
(Check with me before starting on the application design stage,
and before spending too much time on it.)
While the preferred domain is that of artworks/cultural
heritage, this should not be seen as restrictive.
Museum scenario
A museum would like to make an exhibition appealing to members
of the general public from artefacts in its own and sister
collections. The organizers need to browse the collections, find
artefacts belonging to a number of themes and build a story
around them. Design an application (functionality and example
key interfaces) to support the task of the exhibition organizers
in selecting and collecting artefacts, creating a theme,
building a storyline and relating the artefacts to the
storyline.
Holiday scenario
A family wants to plan their own holiday, where they can
choose different places to stay, be able to travel between them,
have access to activities that appeal to the whole family. Think
of keeping track of place, hotel, restaurants, activities.
(Work on this topic is taking place in the EIFFEL
project (in French), of
which Mondeca is one of the partners.)
On the basis of your chosen scenario create a user-centric application design. Decide on the desired functionality. Explain the required underlying domain and/or discourse semantics. (While the semantic relations are necessary for supplying the functionality, the user does not need to be aware, and perhaps should not be aware, of the underlying mechanisms.) How much explicit semantics to expose to the end-user is one of the design decisions you should document.
Part of the application design should contain at least one of
the following, as appropriate:
interface for selecting and
comparing items, be they people, places or objects;
interface for gathering and browsing "interesting" items;
interface for inputting user preferences into system
(e.g. artwork style, hotel facilities, dietary requirements).
You should see the report as a means of conveying your design to
a client. In the report, explain the reasoning behind the design:
what are the design goals;
which (combination of) aspects of the design
satisfy these?
While the preferred domain is that of artworks/cultural heritage, this should not be seen as restrictive.
Publish your assignments on your web page and email a single URL to Lynda.Hardman@cwi.nl before 09:00 Monday 3 September 2007. Don't forget to state the names of the people in your group in the email and in the report.
The Rijksmuseum
collection,
Louvre and
The Artchive are cultural heritage collections.
mSpace, CHIP and /facet
allow exploratory access to (cultural heritage) information.
Semantic search survey by Michiel Hildebrand.
These show interesting interfaces:
These are more oriented to search.
Vox Populi, a system for generating video sequences based on argument structures.
Wordnet is an
existing English language thesaurus from
Princeton that has been converted to RDF.
Dublin Core
(DC), VRA
Core are vocabularies for describing resources. VRA Core is
specialised for works of visual culture as well as the images
that document them.
SKOS, Simple
Knowledge Organisation System, is a family of formal languages,
built on RDF and RDFS, designed for the representation of
structured controlled vocabularies, such as thesauri or
classification schemes.
FOAF
(Friend of a Friend) a means of creating links among people on
the Web, also the FOAF project, in particular the explorer.
These are some links that may not be useful now for the course, but are useful resources about relevant topics.
Web Design
Semantic Web
Facet Browsing