Linked Data at the Open University and the ROLE project

April 14, 2011 Leave a comment

The Open University and the Lucero project have recently launched data.open.ac.uk, an RDF repository of metadata from Open University datasets, such as podcasts, courses, and more. The metadata from these datasets are interlinked and accessible through SPARQL queries.

Needless to say, this initiative provides excellent opportunities for harvesting previously disconnected datasets and providing new services to Open University learners. So, I’ve reused some code kindly provided by Fouad Zablith, in order to produce a widget for the ROLE project. The widget has been built as a Moodle block for recommending learning material inside OpenLearn courses. The widget queries data.open.ac.uk and displays a list of Open University courses, iTunesU podcasts, as well as OpenLearn tags related to the course that the user is currently viewing. You can try it out by logging in as guest at PlaySpace.

Here is also the blog post at the Lucero project: http://lucero-project.info/lb/2011/04/role-widget-consumes-linked-data/

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A Semantic Web service for the lazy blogger

July 26, 2010 Leave a comment

If you’re one of the bloggers that love to blog but never seem to find the time to do it properly (it all sounds so familiar!), then the Semantic Web may have a treat for you. The Evri semantic web service claims to be able to help bloggers follow trends and developments and deliver curated content to their readers:

The idea is to put into play more elements of its technology, such as its notion of collections that lets users follow entities around topics they’re interested in, so that bloggers can become better curators for their sites. They then get better, that is, at pinpointing streams around their specialty and letting information about that flow to their base.

Of course, as the article claims, curated content is not supposed to be a replacement for original content produced by the blogger. Instead, it can be used more like starting material, on top of which the blogger will add an editorial layer. Sweet! :)

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UK Institute of Web Science announced

March 24, 2010 Leave a comment

Gordon Brown announced yesterday the establishment of a UK Institute of Web Science, aiming to promote “cutting edge” web technologies. Mr Brown outlined this vision:

This will help place the UK at the cutting edge of research on the semantic web and other emerging web and internet technologies, and ensure that government is taking the right funding decisions to position the UK as a world leader. And we will invite universities and private sector web developers and companies to join this collaborative project.

Good news indeed, in light of the recent developments in the Linked Data initiative in the UK.

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Whatever you want to ask about the Semantic Web…

November 11, 2009 Leave a comment

…you can ask at the Semantic Overflow. A Semantic Web expert will (hopefully) pick this up and give you a straight answer. Give it a try! ;)

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Raw Data Now in the UK update

October 25, 2009 1 Comment

The implementation of Sir Tim’s “Raw Data Now” vision is well under way in the UK. UK government data are being released and the process is open for input from developers that may want to contribute. Open except from the fact that they have to join a closed Google group (a bit ironic don’t you think?).

Anyway, the data is now available in RDF and can be queried via SPARQL. You can find some useful examples of such queries from Leigh Dodds at the Talis blog. Happy querying! ;)

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