Linked Data at the Open University and the ROLE project

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:43:02 +0000

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/

Raw Data Now in the UK update

Alexander Mikroyannidis — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:49:01 +0000

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!

alexmikro.net » SPARQL

Linked Data at the Open University and the ROLE project

Raw Data Now in the UK update