Beaker Pots by Wessex Archaeology
The final batch of source data has now safely received and is being processed for inclusion in my GSTAR project, kindly provided by the good people at Salisbury Museum. Thanks in particular are due to David Balston for assisting me and Adrian Green for giving the necessary permissions to use the data. Continue reading
Web by David Reid
With all the source data prepped and ready to go, the next step is to build some demonstrators to show how such geosemantic resources can be used in practice. Whilst very powerful, a Sparql endpoint is not the most friendly way of interacting with data resources, especially from within a web based application where options for programming are a bit limited. There is still quite some debate on this topic which will be covered in more detail in the thesis (watch this space; still on track for submission 1st/2nd quarter 2016!) but the approach I have opted for is an API using web services to provide a range of outputs via a combination of URLs and parameters. Continue reading
Piazza Mercato, Siena
Linked Data and Semantic Web based approaches to data management have now become commonplace in the field of heritage. So commonplace in fact, that despite frequent mention in digital literature, and a growing familiarity with concepts such as URIs and RDF across the domain, it is starting to see fall off in Computer Science conferences and journals as many of the purely technical issues are seen to be ‘solved’. So is the revolution over? We propose that until the benefits of Linked Data are seen in real interconnections between independent systems it will not properly have begun. This session will discuss the socio-technical challenges required to build a concrete Semantic Web in the heritage sector.
Ospedale Psichiatrico – the conference venue, aka (rather appropriately, perhaps) the Asylum…
Conference
Following on from my presentation at CAA2014 in Paris, I was invited to submit a paper to a session at CAA2015 covering Linked Data (LD) and focussing on the difference between being theoretically interoperable and interoperating in practice. Continue reading
Stonehenge
The main focus of the GSTAR project is to investigate the use of geosemantic technologies for archaeological research purposes. To this end, a geosemantic resource has been created from a range of sources and the next step is to express real world archaeological research questions in the form of queries which can be actioned on this resource. Whilst I have my own ideas regarding interesting research questions for my study area, in order to engage with the broader research community and draw on their extensive experience and knowledge, I will be taking GSTAR on the road tomorrow, giving an overview of the project to the Avebury and Stonehenge Archaeological and Historical Research Group so as to be able to pick their brains about potential areas of archaeological research which may be interesting and fruitful to explore. Continue reading
Late Upper Palaeolithic long blades by Wessex Archaeology
A while back, I was commissioned by Wessex Archaeology to undertake the Linked Data component of the Colonisation of Britain project. The broader project, funded by English Heritage, involved the digitisation of the archives of the late Roger Jacobi and production of enhanced database/GIS resources now archived at the ADS.
The Linked Data component involved the production of a Linked Data resource based on the Colonisation of Britain database/GIS to be included in Archaeology Data Service (ADS) Linked Data repository. I am very pleased to announce this data is now live! Continue reading
One of the outputs from the Pilot Study was an approach to working with geospatial data within the broader framework provided by the CIDOC CRM ontology and the CRMEH archaeological extension. Whilst there is ongoing work by myself and others to add archaeological and spatio-temporal components directly to the CIDOC CRM, for the purposes of the GSTAR project, a lightweight approach has been developed and deployed to suit the needs of the project; CRMEH already adds archaeological excavation capabilities and the spatial extension presented here gives a range of geospatial capabilities, as provided by a mapping to GeoSPARQL.
Parential Advisory by Michel Dumontier
After a longer than anticipated gestation, my Transfer Report has left my hands and is working its way through the administrative system to be externally examined. Fingers crossed, this is one of my last posts as an MPhil student and I will soon (post viva) be a PhD student proper.
Time for some celebratory fireworks!
The Transfer Report included a condensed form of the literature review and also a detailed report on Pilot Study. This Pilot Study was designed to lay sound foundations for the PhD research and involved implementing a system using geosemantic technologies, primarily to investigate ways in which semantic and geospatial data can work together but also to help me get to grips with the subject area and technologies available.
The full report will be made available in due course, once it has been examined (viva scheduled for end of November) and any corrections completed, but for now here is an update on some of the key findings of the Pilot Study and conclusions drawn.
Continue reading
Day of Archaeology
Last Friday was the Day of Archaeology and judging by the number and quality of posts, this year’s event looked to be one of if not the most successful yet. Massive congratulations and thanks to the organising team who do all the hard work, so much of it in their own time! Continue reading