Presented at Linked Open Data: current practice in libraries and archives (Cataloguing & Indexing Group in Scotland 3rd Linked Open Data Conference), Edinburgh, 18 Nov 2013

1. SENESCHAL
SENESCHAL: Semantic ENrichment Enabling
Sustainability of arCHAeological Links
Peter McKeague
(On behalf of project partners)
peter.mckeague@rcahms.gov.uk
www.rcahms.gov.uk
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk

2. Outline of talk
 Part I
RCAHMS
 What we do
 What we hold
 Classifying
 Part II
Drivers for Linked Data
 Part III
SENESCHAL
 Project Partners
 The Project so far
 Prospects

3. RCAHMS Mission Statement
• Identifies, surveys and analyses the
historic and built environment of Scotland
• Preserves, cares for and adds to the
information and items in its national
collection
• Promotes understanding, education
and enjoyment through interpretation of
the information it collects and the items
it looks after

4. RCAHMS vocabularies
SC656461
SC335945
Monuments
SC1224403
Objects
Maritime Craft
SC694685
Events

5. Standards: Midas Heritage
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/midas-heritage/
CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) http://www.cidoc-crm.org/

6. Monuments: Internal staff database
Thesaurus: Events
Pick lists
Thesauri
Monuments
Objects
Maritime Craft
Pick list
Pick list

7. Information is published on Canmore
Thesauri
Monuments
Objects
Maritime Craft
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk

8. Information is published on Canmore
Thesauri
Monuments
Objects
Maritime Craft

9. RCAHMS thesauri: text search
http://orapweb.rcahms.gov.uk/apex/f?p=210:1:

10. RCAHMS thesauri: term definition
http://orapweb.rcahms.gov.uk/apex/f?p=210:1:

11. RCAHMS thesauri : suggest a term
http://orapweb.rcahms.gov.uk/apex/f?p=210:1:

12. Part II: Drivers for Linked Data
We already publish our thesauri as key reference datasets for use by professional
archaeologists in national organisations, in local authority Historic Environment
Records as well as by anyone interested in the historic environment.
BUT
Our vocabularies (and other data) are not visible
The thesaurus architecture limits the potential of the terminology
Terms lack the persistent URIs that would allow our resources to act as hubs for
the Web of Data.
Interoperability
---For heritage, the main exponents of Linked Data are from the research community,
and in Scotland primarily from Computer Scientists

13. Drivers for Linked Open Data
It is Government policy
Open Data White paper June 2012:
http://data.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Open_data_White_Paper.pdf
Scotland’s Digital Future April 2013:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00421478.pdf

14. Drivers for Linked Open Data
It is Government policy: Open Data White Paper June 2012:
• Public data policy and practice will be clearly driven by the public and businesses who
want to use the data, including what data is released, when and in what form
• Public data will be published in reusable, machine-readable form
• Public data will be released under the same open licence which enables free reuse,
including commercial reuse
• Public data will be published using open standards, and following relevant
recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium
• Public data from different departments about the same subject will be published in the
same, standard formats and with the same definitions
• Public data underlying the Government’s own website will be published in re-usable form
• Release data quickly, and then work to make sure it is available in open standard
formats, including Linked data forms.

15. ... And a practical use
An online submission form to report fieldwork from contractors to curators

16. Part III: The partners
“the key to interoperability”
http://www.heritagedata.org/
©University of Glamorgan

17. Lineage
STAR: Semantic Technologies for Archaeological resources
2007-2010
AHRC funded project with English Heritage to apply semantic and knowledge-based
technologies to the digital archaeological domain. STAR developed new methods for linking
digital archive databases, vocabularies and the associated grey literature, exploiting the
potential of a high level, core ontology and natural language processing techniques.
http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/star/
STELLAR: Semantic Technologies Enhancing Links and Linked data for Archaeological
Resources
2010-2011
AHRC funded project with the ADS and English Heritage. Building on the outcomes of STAR,
STELLAR provided support for non-specialist users to map and extract datasets.
http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/stellar/
SENESCHAL: Semantic ENrichment Enabling Sustainability of arCHAeological Links 2013-2014
AHRC funded project with the ADS, English Heritage, RCAHMS, RCAHMW and Wessex
Archaeology.
http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/SENESCHAL/
and
http://www.heritagedata.org

18. The SENESCHAL Project
 seneschal n. Historical
 The steward or major-domo of a medieval great house
 12 month AHRC funded project
 March 2013 - February 2014
 Deliverables
 Controlled vocabularies online
 Linked data (SKOS)
 Downloadable files
 Web services
 term suggestion, term validation, legacy data alignment
 Tools to align data with controlled vocabularies
 Browser-based ‘widget’ controls

19. Interoperability
 “The terminology of a subject is the key to
interoperability” (John F. Sowa)
 Interoperability requires more than just a common
data model
 Data compatibility occurs on 2 levels – semantic
and syntactic. Ontologies / data structures deal
with the semantic but not necessarily the syntactic
 “The CRM relies on existing syntactic interoperability
and is concerned only with adding semantic
interoperability” (CIDOC CRM documentation)

20. You say potato, I say tomato…
 Multiple datasets, multiple
organisations, multiple languages
 Unification of data structures is
possible, BUT…
 Incompatible terminology hinders
cross search and prevents greater
interoperability
 Applications attempting to reuse
data must all individually sort out
the same old problems
 E.g. Get all the iron age post holes…
Feature
Period
Post-hole
IRON AGE
Posthole
|ron age
POST HOLE
Iron age?
POSTHLOLE
EARLY IRON AGE
POST HOLE
(POSSIBLE)
250 BC
POSTHOLES
C 500-200 B.C.
Solution: data cleansing and controlled vocabularies?

21. Typical interoperability issues encountered
 Simple spelling errors
 POSTHLOLE”, “CESS PITT”, “FURRROWS”, FLINT SCRAPPER”
 Alternate word forms
 “BOUNDARY”/”BOUNDARIES”, “GULLEY”/”GULLIES”
 Prefixes / suffixes
 “RED HILL (POSSIBLE)”, “TRACKWAY (COBBLED)”, “CROFT?”, “CAIRN
(POSSIBLE)”, “PORTAL DOLMEN (RE-ERECTED)”
 Nested delimiters
 “POTTERY, CERAMIC TILE, IRON OBJECTS, GLASS”
 Terms not intended for indexing
 “NONE”, “UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT”, “N/A”, “NA”, “INCOHERENT”
 Terms that would not be in (any) thesauri
 “WOTSITS PACKET”, “CHARLES 2ND COIN”, “ROMAN STRUCTURE POSSIBLY A
VILLA“, “ST GUTHLACS BENEDICTINE PRIORY”, “WORCESTER-BIRMINGHAM
CANAL”, “KUNGLIGA SLOTTET”, “SUB-FOSSIL BEETLES”
 More specific phrases
 “SIDE WALL OF POT WITH LUG”, “BRICK-LINED INDUSTRIAL WELL OR MINE
SHAFT”, “ALIGNMENT OF PLATFORMS AND STONES”

22. Solutions - SENESCHAL
 Controlled vocabularies (again)
 Commonly agreed concepts, terminology and identifiers
 Existing / new thesauri – community contributions?
 Openness and availability
 Licensing, web services, downloads, data formats
 Alignment of existing data
 Data cleansing tools
 Alignment techniques
 Alignment of new data
 Interactive embedded data entry tools
 Validation at point of data entry
 Rather than trying to solve this vocabulary problem, help to
prevent it from happening in the first place

23. Vocabularies online as (SKOS) Linked Data
 Vocabularies from English Heritage





Monument Types Thesaurus
Objects Thesaurus
Event Types Thesaurus
Maritime Craft Thesaurus
RCHME Cultural Periods List / MIDAS Archaeological Periods List
 Vocabularies from RCAHMS
 Monument Thesaurus (Scotland)
 Multilingual - includes Scottish Gaelic translations!
 Objects (Scotland)
 Maritime Craft (Scotland)
 Vocabularies from RCAHMW
 Monument Thesaurus (Wales)
 Event (Wales)
 Period (Wales)
 Moving from term based towards concept based indexing
 Start to create links between concepts… between vocabularies… between datasets…
between sites… between countries
 Cross searching of (multilingual) cultural heritage resources

24. (partial) SKOS model
skos:ConceptScheme
skos:topConceptOf
dc:title,
dc:description
[literal value]
skos:hasTopConcept
skos:inScheme
skos:broader,
skos:narrower,
skos:related
skos:Concept
skos:member
skos:Collection
skos:prefLabel,
skos:altLabel,
skos:notation,
skos:scopeNote,
skos:changeNote
[literal value]

25. Data licensing and attribution using CC REL
 Attribution back to original data providers
URI
cc:attributionURL
cc:attributionURL
cc:license
cc:license
skos:ConceptScheme
skos:Concept
URI
cc:attributionName
cc:attributionName
[literal value]
dct:creator
dct:creator
URI
dc:source
URI
dc:source

26. General System Architecture
Native
vocabularies
Additional
metadata
web controls & applications
Linked Data
REST API
STELLAR (SKOS) templates
(upload)
SKOS RDF
vocabularies
Web Services
REST API
SPARQL query endpoint
SENESCHAL
data store

27. Linked Data API (preliminary)
 The project will implement a Linked Data (restful) API
 The base URI maybe http://www.heritagedata.org/ or http://purl.org/xxx/..
 Seneschal is a sub-project within the wider scope of ‘heritagedata.org’ – so:
 http://www.heritagedata.org/seneschal - wiki/blog for project details, and
 <base uri>/schemes/123 (e.g.) for actual data API – see below…
 Proposed REST API:











/schemes – return list of all SKOS concept schemes held
/schemes/search - (with parameters) – search for schemes
/schemes/{id} – return details of specified SKOS concept scheme (current version)
/schemes/{id}.html, .n3, .rdf, .json – return different serializations of that data,
obtained either by content negotiation or by direct request including extension
/schemes/{id}/concepts – return list of ALL SKOS concepts in specified scheme
/schemes/{id}/concepts/search – search for concepts in the specified scheme
/concepts – return list of all SKOS concepts in ALL schemes
/concepts/search - (with parameters) – search for concepts in any scheme
/concepts/{id} – return details of specified SKOS concept (current version)
/concepts/{id}.html, .n3, .rdf, .json – return different serializations of the data,
obtained either by content negotiation or by direct request including extension
/concepts/{id}/schemes - return list of all schemes referencing the specified concept

28. Project deliverables
http://www.heritagedata.org/blog/

29. Schema List
http://heritagedata.org/test/getAllSchemes.php

30. Scottish Monument types
http://heritagedata.org/test/schemes/1.html

31. Scottish Monument types: Top level
http://heritagedata.org/test/schemes/1/concepts/405.html

32. Scottish Monument types: concept
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/1/concepts/409

33. http://heritagedata.org/test/searchForm.php

35. http://heritagedata.org/test/sparql.php

36. Versioning (preliminary)
 /schemes/{id} – returns current version of the specified scheme
 /schemes/{id}/versions – returns all versions of the specified
scheme
 /schemes/{id}/versions/{id} – returns specified version of the
specified scheme
 /concepts/{id} – returns current version of the specified concept
 /concepts/{id}/versions – returns all versions of the specified
concept
 /concepts/{id}/versions/{id} – returns specified version of the
specified concept
dct:hasVersion
[skos:ConceptScheme]
data:schemes/123
(dct:isVersionOf)
[skos:ConceptScheme]
data:schemes/123/versions/20111005
dct:hasVersion
(dct:isVersionOf)
[skos:ConceptScheme]
data:schemes/123/versions/2013020301

37. Published vocabularies
Vocabulary
England
Scotland
Wales
Monument type
YES
YES
YES
Objects
YES
YES
Maritime craft
YES
YES
Period
YES
Events (activities)
YES
???
Archaeological Sciences
YES
???
Components
YES
Building materials
YES
Evidence
YES
YES

38. A question of jurisdiction
TENEMENT (Scotland)
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/1/concepts/467
A large building containing a number of rooms or flats,
access to which is usually gained via a common stairway.
TENEMENT (England)
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/eh_tmt2/concepts/68997
A parcel of land.
TENEMENT (Wales)
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/10/concepts/68997
TENEMENT BLOCK (England)
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/eh_tmt2/concepts/71489
Use for speculatively built 19th century "model dwellings",
rather than those built by a philanthropic society.
TENEMENT BLOCK (Wales)
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/10/concepts/71489
TENEMENT HOUSE (England)
http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/eh_tmt2/concepts/71476
SC674834
289 Allison Street, Glasgow: TENEMENT
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/148111/
Originally built as a family house. Converted into flats during the
19th or 20th century.

39. A question of jurisdiction
SC683414
Cruck Framed Byre, Latheron, Caithness
http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/86630/
A Cruck House in Wick, Worcestershire
Cruck cottage in Wick
Philip Halling
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

40. A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh?
DP151933
The Cenotaph, George Square, Glasgow: http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/143264/

41. A bheil Gàidhlig agaibh?

42. Multilinguality
 Multilingual
labels & notes
 Search in one
language,
retrieve
another
 Potential to
manage
regional terms

43. Challenges for RCAHMS
Controlled vocabularies online
 Integration of project deliverables into RCAHMS processes
 Managing candidate terms
 Publishing additional vocabularies
 Jurisdiction
 - a single British thesaurus for Cultural heritage?
 Adding images
 Moving the goalposts

44. Summary
 Controlled vocabularies online
 Linked data (SKOS)
 Downloadable files
 Linking out
 Mapping between the different thesauri
 Web services
 term suggestion, term validation, legacy data alignment
 Tools to align data with controlled vocabularies
 Browser-based ‘widget’ controls
http://www.heritagedata.org/blog/work-in-the-pipeline/

45. “the key to interoperability”
http://www.heritagedata.org/
©University of Glamorgan