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Improving interoperability using vocabulary linked data

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Abstract

The concept of Linked Data has been an emerging theme within the computing and digital heritage areas in recent years. The growth and scale of Linked Data has underlined the need for greater commonality in concept referencing, to avoid local redefinition and duplication of reference resources. Achieving domain-wide agreement on common vocabularies would be an unreasonable expectation; however, datasets often already have local vocabulary resources defined, and so the prospects for large-scale interoperability can be substantially improved by creating alignment links from these local vocabularies out to common external reference resources. The ARIADNE project is undertaking large-scale integration of archaeology dataset metadata records, to create a cross-searchable research repository resource. Key to enabling this cross search will be the ‘subject’ metadata originating from multiple data providers, containing terms from multiple multilingual controlled vocabularies. This paper discusses various aspects of vocabulary mapping. Experience from the previous SENESCHAL project in the publication of controlled vocabularies as Linked Open Data is discussed, emphasizing the importance of unique URI identifiers for vocabulary concepts. There is a need to align legacy indexing data to the uniquely defined concepts and examples are discussed of SENESCHAL data alignment work. A case study for the ARIADNE project presents work on mapping between vocabularies, based on the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus as a central hub and employing an interactive vocabulary mapping tool developed for the project, which generates SKOS mapping relationships in JSON and other formats. The potential use of such vocabulary mappings to assist cross search over archaeological datasets from different countries is illustrated in a pilot experiment. The results demonstrate the enhanced opportunities for interoperability and cross searching that the approach offers.

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Notes

  1. Semantic Enrichment Enabling Sustainability of Archaeological Links (SENESCHAL) [4] was funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and coordinated by the Hypermedia Research Group at the University of South Wales (formerly University of Glamorgan). Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe (ARIADNE) [5] is an ongoing EC FP7 Project.

  2. Following completion of the project operational management of HeritageData.org and governance of the vocabularies was transferred to EH, RCAHMS, RCAHMW collectively, under the rubric of the FISH Terminology Working Group [19].

  3. It should be noted that the criteria of the “5 star” scheme as described in Fig. 1 do not measure data quality OR quantity, the scheme only grades LOD in terms of data formats used, licensing conditions and the presence of (an unspecified quantity of) external links.

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Acknowledgments

The SENESCHAL project was supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/K002112/1]. The ARIADNE project is funded by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2012-1-313193). An early version of this work was presented at the 13th European Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS) Workshop in association with the Digital Libraries 2014 conference. Thanks are due to the Archaeology Data Service for their work with the vocabulary mapping tool reported in this paper. Thanks are also due to ARIADNE and SENESCHAL project partners and the participants of the SENESCHAL workshops.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hypermedia Research Group, Faculty of Computing Engineering and Science, University of South Wales, Llantwit Road, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL, United Kingdom

    Ceri Binding & Douglas Tudhope

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  1. Ceri Binding
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  2. Douglas Tudhope
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Correspondence to Ceri Binding.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Extracts of the concept mappings used for the exploratory case study described in Sect. 4 (expressed in TURTLE RDF format):

figure a
figure b

Appendix 2

Example concept mappings produced by ADS in the vocabulary matching exercise as described in Sect. 5 (Vocabulary Matching Tool output in JSON format):

figure c

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Binding, C., Tudhope, D. Improving interoperability using vocabulary linked data. Int J Digit Libr 17, 5–21 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00799-015-0166-y

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