The BBC's recently announced Linked Data space for Programmes and Music data, joins a growing list of immediately useful "Virtuoso Powered" linked data spaces, driving the burgeoning Web of Linked Data. Others include: DBpedia, Bio2RDF, NeuroCommons etc (the click friendly version of the LOD-Cloud diagram reveals a snapshot of other Virtuoso driven linked data spaces).
Why is it important?
As a leading media organization, the BBC's use of Linked Data provides a clear beacon to other media players re. the imminence of a serious Linked Data induced sector inflection. In a nutshell, every Web Site has to evolve into a Linked Data Space: a location on the Web that provides granular access to discrete data items in line with the core principles of the Linked Data meme.
Remember, the essence of the Linked Data meme is simply this: you reference data items and access their metadata, in variety of formats via a single HTTP based URI. This approach to Web data publishing is compatible with any HTTP aware user agent (e.g., your Web Browser or tools & applications that provide abstracted access to HTTP).
How Do I use it?
There a number of very powerful things available to end-users and developers alike.
End-Users:
The most powerful feature of our variant of the BBC's Linked Data Space is the exposure of Faceted Find (think Search++ and beyond). Thus, you can go the the home page of the service and commence data discovery and exploration via any of the following interfaces:
- Full Text Search Tab -- type in a full text pattern and then experience Linked Data Entity Ranking as opposed to Page Ranking
- URI Lookup (By Label) Tab -- type in part of a URI and let the system auto-complete by looking up Entity Labels
- URI Lookup (Raw String Pattern) Tab -- type in part of a URI and let the system auto-complete by looking up the raw URI
- OpenLink Data Explorer Service -- "deceptively simple" Linked Data explorer and Data Mesher (simply type in a URI or Text pattern, then view the data via a myriad of entity type specific viewer tabs).
Once you are comfortable with at least one of the items above, you can exploit the system further by performing any of the following:
- Explore the Linked Data Space via Data Dictionary -- click on a Named Data Set URI and then explore Class instances (rdf:type property values)
- Explore Entity Metadata -- currently labeled "Statistics" but really is "Metadata" that describes data about an Entity (how you discern identifier co-reference, indirect identifiers, references from other data sets, and provenance/source graphs).
Information Architects & Developers
- Bare bones SPARQL Endpoint -- usable by SPARQL aware user agents
- SPARQL Query Tool -- type in SPARQL and interact with result pages that enable URI navigation (de-referencing)
- iSPARQL Query By Example -- paint your SPARQL Query and Learn SPARQL by Example (just take defaults and then click "OK" to get in)
- Virtuoso Facets API - REST API for Faceted Browsing & Navigation across Linked Data Set Dimensions.
Disambiguated Search (aka. Search++ or Find)
In line with the time-tested "embrace and extend" pattern, we provide Full Text search capability, but unlike Google, Yahoo!, Bing and other search engines, we don't use use "Page Rank" algorithm to sort results; instead, we use an "Entity Rank" algorithm since we are dealing with an RDF based Graph model DBMS where links exist between entities across instance data and data dictionary (vocabularies, schemas, ontologies) boundaries. In addition, when you get results (by clicking "show values" or "show values with distinct counts") that list entities associated with a full text search pattern, we take a quantum leap beyond search engines by allowing you to use "Entity Type" and/or "Entity Properties" (all of these have HTTP URIs too) to set your own context for what you seek.
Much more to come in the form of BBC specific demo queries and tutorials :-)
Related
- Live LOD Cloud Cache instance that combines BBC data with other data sets from the LOD Cloud (in a single Virtuoso RDF DBMS hosting 5 Billion+ triples & counting)
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