Rapid Web Application Development for Linked Data

Rapid Semantic Web
Application Development
using Callimachus

Wednesday, September 14, 2011 1

Information overload, Impatient society, Change is the only constant
Software is not valued by its usefulness ... but by its expected future value

• Linked Data is about
publishing and consuming
data using international data
standards
• Based on 20 year old idea
• A system of linked
information systems
• Goal is to solve
organizational issues related
to data silos, requirements
for faster data integration
and the environment of
reduced IT budgets


Intro 3 Round Stones team, leaders in the international data integration standards published by the W3C ...
authors of peer-reviewed publications
Chairs of W3C working groups
Leaders in Open Source community

Problem Statement
We are curating LOTS of data today

Data model may change tomorrow

Guided curation helpful

Must be Web based


We need a solution that will be up and running today. Downloadable from the Web for developers to use
immediately. Preferably Open Source to gain all the beneﬁts that brings.
Something that handles the change we know we’ll have tomorrow
And ideally, deals with data quality & cleansing. Something that guides editors to collect and structure their data

Data Curation
Usual data management
concerns ...
Updating, correcting,
collecting, annotating,
publishing, categorizing
Promote data sharing
Data authority & provenance
are critical


Possible Solutions
Roll your own three-tier

Content Management System

Wiki-based

Linked Data Management System


A few different possible solutions to the three challenges stated earlier

Content Management Systems


The big downside to 3 tier architecture is the upfront cost, as well as getting people to agree upfront on the
schema
So we then looked at CMS
These are systems that can be up and running the same day

Support collaboration & data sharing

Controls access

Provides easy storage

Reduces duplication

Improves report writing

Improves communication


Everyone is familiar with the benefits of CMS, but let’s highlight them as context for the rest of this talk ...

Many features out of the box

Compile time extendable

Rigid data model, not agile

Change & customization is
expensive


CMS has a signiﬁcant reduced upfront cost
However, like 3 tier architecture, change and customization is expensive
General CMS do not quickly adapt to change

Wiki Software
Media Wiki

Semantic Media Wiki


CMS are slow to adopt to change
So we then looked at Wiki Systems.
These are open ended, put whatever you want in them

Wiki Software
Collaboratively edit web pages

Transparency, linking, a low barrier to entry

Wikis focus is on unstructured content, ease of use


Wiki Software
Many features out of the box

Easy to add new content data

Unstructured data

Blank page syndrome


When presented with inﬁnite choice, it's sometimes hard to get started
How do you ask multiple editors to provide particular information consistently?

Callimachus (kəәlĭm'əәkəәs) is a framework for data-driven
applications based on Linked Data principles.

Callimachus allows Web authors to quickly and easily create
semantically-enabled Web applications.


Wiki Systems don't handle structured content well nor promulgate change well.
A tool for Web 2.0 developers creating DATA RICH web sites was needed …
We created Callimachus, a triples up & down solution (no mySQL under the covers). HIGHLY SCALABLE for real world use.
Named for the father of Bibliography (The Pinakes) at the Great Library of Alexandria. Lived during 305-c. 240 BCE.
He could not categorize his own work using Aristotle's hierarchical system. He was the ﬁrst person who deﬁned the use case for Linked
Data.

Web 2.0 developers can create data driven application
with templates in hours
Triples up & down (no mySQL under the covers)
Wiki editing of content
Access control
Collaboration via Web
Change tracking (history)
Page/form Templates


Callimachus is a great way to collaboratively manage your Linked Data
Media Wiki is to free text what Callimachus is to linked data
Callimachus uses a straight forward ACL for linked data


An example of the wiki user interface.


This is an example of the view tab that took less than an hour to construct after loading 100M triples into a
database. It was an easy, fast way to begin to navigate the content and explore what we have -- this is all possible
because of the underlying data as RDF.


Example of the forms user interface in Callimachus


Callimachus allows us to visualize Google charts as pie charts, scatter plots, time series, bar charts, etc. It is easy
to show data on a map too.


Note the ﬁxed name and added
comment.


A history of changes is kept. Note the change to the name and the added comment, along with the time/date
and name of the user who made the edit.


Selecting a TRI report will take you to information about a particular report. In this case, 3 pounds of lead was
released in 2010 by the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant.


Selecting a substance name (e.g. from a TRI report) will take you to information about that substance. This data
comes from SRS.

Join the Community
Callimachus has benefited from 2+ years of corporate support

We’re using it for real world Web applications in environmental
protection, finance and healthcare

We’d love to work with the publishing industry

Open Source project

Visit callimachusproject.org

Join the discussion


Rapid Web Application Development for Linked Data

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