Semantic web: practical tools
Discover here a number of publications, practical guides and tools to appropriate the stakes of the semantic Web.
The "Semantic Web", a set of standards and technologies that act behind the scenes to better highlight cultural content
The “Web 3.0”, also known as “Semantic Web”, “Data Web”, or “Linked Data Web”, is based on an extension of the basic standards of the Web. This technological evolution transforms the Web, first web documents, then a social web into a semantic web. This is one of the most important evolutions since the creation of the web in the early 1990s. It is transforming the web into a gigantic knowledge base. It allows, among other things, the creation of search tools for information, navigation, visualization, translation and automatic reasoning (called inferences), outside the reach of conventional search engines.
However, it is almost unknown to the general public (unlike Web 2.0, for example) because it impacts in the first place the deep ecosystem of the web, what is called «the invisible web», that is to say the deposits of information contained in the sub-databasesunderlying the web. In the long term, Web 3.0 will have a major impact on the cultural field, both in terms of the organisation of digital resources and in terms of uses, tools and infrastructures.
The Web of linked data is based on a set of technologies and standards aimed at promoting interoperability. The structuring of metadata according to standards and semantic web technologies is a major challenge to improve the visibility and discoverability of cultural content. Linked data allow to value the knowledge specific to a specific sector but also to put them in perspective with the data of other sectors. These linked data can constitute knowledge graphs that can feed algorithms and solutions such as recommendation engines or semi-automatic annotation systems.
Cultural Metadata and Web Transition Roadmap 3.0
The cultural sector, which at the French level was one of the first sectors to take a step towards the web of linked data, is fully aware of its challenges and benefits. To date, the implementation and technical choices to be made or prioritized in the semiantisation projects require support and support. It is therefore to facilitate and frame this support and support that the Ministry of Culture has established a strategy for the semiantisation of cultural data. This strategy ' Cultural Metadata and Web Transition 3.0 » published in a first version in 2014, focuses on four main areas: identification, interconnection, interaction and trust. An overhaul of this strategy is currently underway.
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Guide for data producers
This document is intended for all data producers in the cultural sector (departments of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, public institutions, territorial administrations, associations etc.) and even beyond. A data producer is any person or organization responsible for the creation, maintenance or management of a database or an online service describing, using metadata, documents, resources, content, whether or not those documents oravailable in digital or analogue form.
The assignment of unique and sustainable identifiers to the entities described, whatever their nature, is absolutely necessary to ensure the proper management, accessibility and reusability of the data and metadata produced.
The objective of the Sustainable Identifiers for Cultural Resources vade-me is to guide data producers, from twelve simple questions, in setting up these identifiers.
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Practical guides
Technical recommendations for metadata and standards
The challenges of metadata and standards
A training program
A cross-functional training program has been in place since 2018. It is intended for all staff potentially or directly involved in these developments within the Ministry of Culture and its supervised institutions. Awareness-raising and skills development are all the more crucial because the specificities of Web 3.0 are not sufficiently known, and even less technically mastered, within cultural institutions.
The challenge of this cross-functional training program is:
- to develop, in a homogeneous way, all the agents involved in Web 3.0 oriented projects,
- develop a common culture of change and innovation within the Ministry and its institutions,
- facilitate the emergence of projects across disciplines and organizations.
The repository proposes a division into four modules associated with the functions concerned by the semantic web. The training course offers three sequences:
- An introduction to Web 3.0 issues
- A practical application
- Project management
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Trace the source of data for greater reliability and confidence
The semantic Web and its technologies promote the interconnection of many data sources that will not all have the same reliability. In this context, it is important to be able to trace the source of the data to allow users to reuse them with confidence. The W3 consortium has developed a generic, extensible and interoperable PROV model for source metadata.
The purpose of this document is to “position ACM as an expert on digital data traceability” and to provide a “state-of-the-art on models for reconstructing the source of data.”
A specific working group bringing together representatives of the Ministries of Culture (MC) and Foreign Affairs and International Development (MAEDI), a local authority (Gironde General Council) and the Laboratoire d'informatique en image et systèmes d'information (LIRIS) met from April to October 2014 to draw up a state-of-the-art description of the source.
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Application of Technologies 3.0 to the Description of Cultural Events
How can the use of semantic technologies (or so-called Web 3.0-oriented technologies) allow the decompartmentalization by interconnecting event data?
This document is primarily intended for the staff of cultural institutions that manage agendas, institutional social networks, multimedia productions, online information resources and websites in general.
The Web is one of the primary channels for disseminating and enhancing the cultural institutions' offer. In recent years, it has also been determining referral mechanisms and, ultimately, the choice of cultural outings and visits.
Tips and examples to interconnect data
Institutions today have no technical means to organise, on a large scale, the interconnection of their data describing their collections or their programming, as their online calendars operate in silo mode.
This document shows, for example, how the use of semantic technologies (or so-called Web 3.0-oriented) will allow the decompartmentalization by interconnecting these data. It presents an overview of the models to represent these data and it looks at the very rich ecosystem of applications for producing or consuming these data, visualizing and interacting with cultural agendas. Finally, it offers a number of recommendations for a possible technical evolution of the information systems managing cultural agendas so that they benefit fully from the technological revolution called 3.0.
A pilot project
It recommends setting up a pilot project, on a small but culturally very rich territory (e.g. the Villette basin in Paris), which would take up these recommendations to increase the visibility of the cultural offer of this territory.
What benefits?
The expected benefits are multiple:
- for the public, the possibility of conducting cross-cutting thematic research or the interconnection of agendas with geolocation and transport data allowing better physical access where events take place; for cultural resource centres, new access points for their collections and resources, better visibility in search engines, multilingualism and translation for cultural tourism;
- for cultural actors, a precise monitoring of the activity of creators (musical groups, theatre companies, dancers, etc.) both nationally and internationally.
- In general, for cultural professionals, the use of these technologies and the interconnection of their agendas offer a certain benefit in terms of human resources and financial resources over the long term.
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