Semantic Library

 

Learning Program

Page history last edited by Jodi Schneider 1 yr ago

What should we be learning about?

When this wiki was formed I had the idea to put together a learning program about the semantic library - free, online, and designed for librarians who want to know more but aren't sure where to start. Content would be in plain English, and might look a bit like Five Weeks to a Social Library - online and open using free tools. Participants would be provided with readings and discussion tools to talk to others.

 

Here's a rough idea of what the program might cover. Got ideas? Feel free to add them! If you would like to help out with organising/running such a program please add your name.

 

Fiona

 

Thanks so much to:

Naeem Shabir

Jodi Schneider

Laura J Smart

Jonathan Blackburn

 

For their awesome contributions so far!

 

Learning Program Plan [30 September 2008]

 

To be completed:

  • Lesson plan (the table below)
  • Weekly program and introduction of each concept
  • Weekly outcomes and activities
  • Completion of reading list for each week
  • Lining up of guest speakers/chat participants
  • Set up of learning program website (Drupal)
  • Promotion plan: Where will we advertise the program?
  • Criteria for selection of participants
  • Program evaluation plan

 

Completion of this to take approx 6 weeks at most? I will complete a proposed timeline for this and call for volunteers for specific tasks within the to do list.

 

Program Lesson Plan [30 September 2008]

 

Reformatted from original information further down the page, with some additional readings and activity notes. Please add your ideas on activities, exercises, and more readings here.

 

  Outcomes Key learning points Reading/Viewing Exercise Assignment Conversation/reflection topic Guest Speaker Meeting
Pre-program See: Pre-program information See: Pre-program information

Andy Powell, Does metadata matter? (Presentation)

Freek Bijl, Web 3.0 explained with a stamp (part 1) (Presentation)

 

 Sign up for blog or point to your own blog on the learning program site

 

Complete readings

 

Complete blog post

Blog post (on learning site or personal blog) How did you become interested in the Semantic Web?

How do you think this course will be of benefit to you or your work?

   Asynchronous: Blogs and comments
Week 1: What is the Semantic Web?

By the end of this week, learners will:

Have an understanding of the place of the Semantic Web within the development of the Web as a whole

Be aware of major recent developments/applications

Be aware of some library-specific developments and applications, and key players/organisations

 

Overview of the evolution of the web
State of the Semantic Web in 2008
Future directions over the next 2-3 years
What can you do with the Semantic Web
Applications in libraries

Researchers and organisations involved - current awareness

Links to blogs and organisations provided for participants to follow through the rest of the course:

Nodalities
The Semantic Web (Paul Miller)
Daniela Barbosa
The Sun BabelFish Blog
Coyle's InFormation

Other readings:

Allan Cho and Dean Giustini, Web 3.0 and Health Libraries [PDF], Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 29(1), 13-18.

Alex Iskold, Semantic Web Patterns, ReadWrite Web, March 25 2008

Response: Danny Ayers, Nitpicking Alex's Semantic Web Patterns, Nodalities, March 26 2008

Alex Iskold, Semantic Web: What Is The Killer App? ReadWrite Web, January 9 2008

Silver Oliver, Semantic Web BBC Workshop, BBC Internet Blog, August 19 2008

 

Participants should:

Subscribe to at least 4 blogs focused on the Semantic Web to follow for the rest of the course

 

Each participant should make comments on each other's blogs during this week

Blog post (on the learning site or aggregated from own blog) outlining the area of the Semantic Web that is most relevant/interesting to the participant's work or interests (this will assist in forming the project groups later on)

 

Post thoughts about at least one of the readings

    Asynchronous: blog comments
Week 2: Components

Participants will be aware of current standards

Participants will be introduced to RDF and Ontologies

  

Reading:

Natalya Foy and Natalie McGuiness, Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology

 

David Seth, Semantic Web for Distributed Social Networks, Web Directions South 2008

Peter C. Weinstein. 1998. Ontology-based metadata: transforming the MARC legacy. In Proceedings of the third ACM conference on Digital libraries, 254-263, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. In ACM Digital Library.

Allemang, D., Hendler, J. 2008. Semantic web for the working ontologist. (book review)

John Breslin, Semantic Web/Web 3.0, DERI (Presentation on RDF and ontologies)

Further resources:

Weaving SIOC into the Web of Linked Data, DERI

RDFa wiki

GetSemantic wiki

Overview (in French): A la découverte du Web sémantique et de ses technologies

Semantic Web and Libraries workshop, ELAG, NL -

          
Week 3: Hands-on

Participants will have knowledge of current semantic web technologies and sites

Participants will gain a greater understanding of XML, RDF and OWL

Participants will gain knowledge of semantic search concepts, microformats and APIs

  

Visit the following websites, and sign up for at least two services:

Examples of semantic web concepts:

Twine
Freebase
Semantic Bible
Search Monkey support for hcard, Faviki, etc.)
dbPedia + BBC

Semantic search and SPARQL

Mashups:

SIMILE, Zotero, microformats, OpenCalais, Triplify

 

 

  Sign up for at least two services (or install plugins - eg Zotero)  

Blog post with a short evaluation of the sites that you signed up for.

Will you continue to use any of them?

Where is there room for improvement?

 

    
Week 4: Applications in libraries and group project

All participants will have an overview of semantic web development in libraries

Participants will select a topic to follow for weeks 4 and 5

Concepts this week will include:

Linked data and LCSH in linked data

FRBR in RDF vocabulary

Topic Maps

 

 

Participants should join one of the following project groups [is this the grouping we want to use? Please suggest alternatives if not]:

  • Health science
  • Museums
  • Open data/data curation
  • Social networking
  • Microformats

See further details below on this page

 

  

Project groups will establish their project wiki. Their goal is to:

  1. Collect resources on their topic
  2. Discuss applications in their workplace and other libraries
  3. Put together a short presentation on their topic for the other participant groups
  4. Create an application? (depends on time, topic and skill level of the participants)
     Project groups should establish how they intend to work together across timezones and commitments - they may schedule IM time, start a forum, or post blog commens and wiki content
Week 5: Project week 2 Participants will produce a wiki listing resources on their topic, and a presentation on their topic for the other participant groups    Readings will be suggested for each topic (see further down this page)   Particpants deliver their presentation in the format of their choosing (eg - video, slideshow, audio)     Project groups should establish how they intend to work together across timezones and commitments - they may schedule IM time, start a forum, or post blog commens and wiki content
Week 6: Conclusion Participants will reflect on their experience in the program, and outline plans for further learning        

Does the semantic web matter? Trends?

Ideas for how to use it in your work - supporting library users, researchers, and providing library services?

Blog post on how you will continue your learning

    

 

[Jodi]: Do we have a timetable? We seem to be on the right track to offering a "5 Weeks to a Semantic Library". Based on http://www.semanticlibrary.net/learn/content/starting-build-site#comments

I think we want a reading, an experiential exercise, and a writing assignment for each week. We will need to decide if we want to meet synchronously at all (e.g. for a guest speaker and IRC chat; maybe the same thing could be accomplished with recordings followed by forum or blog discussions.)

 

[Jodi]: We will also want to think about recruiting participants--where to announce the program, how much time we expect each participant to spend on the program each week, etc.

 

[Fiona]: Jodi and all: please see above, and thank you for your suggestion of how to structure the program.

 

Question [Jon B]: Would we consider a "tracked" approach for this program, where somewhere in the middle participants were allowed to break off into facilitated groups to work on issues more specific to their interests? The Semantic Web covers so many technologies and possibilities, it's hard to see the forest from the trees without some focus or hands-on experience in your area.  Perhaps, we could assign each group a small "project" to come up with an idea for a semantic web application, project, or standard that would be useful for their field(s).

Response [Fiona]: This is a great idea, and should be easy to manage within Moodle or other learning management software. I envision this being a little like BIGWIG but 100% online where people can share examples and resources, and then work together.

Response [Jon B]: Cool - good to know - just looking at the topics below  ... there is SO much that could be covered.  Breaking up into groups would allow everyone to get a idea of the depth and range of uses of semantic technologies, and if they "presented" their findings back to the broader group, everyone could benefit.  Another project idea would be to have each group create a "work plan for applying a semantic web technology in libraries" or something like that. (Sorry I love interactive, group stuff.)

Response [Laura]: I love the idea of work plan. It would help learners understand the "so-what" factor and it would provide incentive for doing the learning program -- a good thing if, for example, one wanted to persuade an entire library work group to do the training.  I will discuss with my colleagues and see if they would be interested as we're currently writing up our annual training plans.  I think the notion of having an application in mind that the learners will create and implement as they learn will be persuasive.  We meet next week, I'll let you know how they respond.  Oh -- and perhaps we should consider a general discussion of library specific applications in Week 1 to give some context prior to the details of Week 4.   

 

So where are we with getting this up and running?

 

[Fiona Aug 5 08] Want to help developing the site? Sign up either to tweak Drupal or add learning content: http://www.semanticlibrary.net/learn/ 

 

  1. What should we be learning about?
      1. Learning Program Plan [30 September 2008]
      2. Program Lesson Plan [30 September 2008]
      3. So where are we with getting this up and running?
      4. Pre-program: Before you begin
      5. Week 1: What is the semantic web?
      6. Week 2: Components
      7. Week 3: Hands-on
      8. Week 4: Applications in libraries, research, data and science
      9. Week 5: Summary

     

    Pre-program: Before you begin

     

    • What skills do we presume of the learning audience? We should brainstorm and make explicit the background knowledge necessary to succeed in the Learning Program.
      • basic knowledge of WWW architecture, HTML, XML
      • basic knowledge of metadata
      • ...what else?

    [Fiona's comment: this is important I agree that there will be some technical background required. Learner profiles will help us to better define course outcomes and promote the course]

    • Sound knowledge of databases and database structures (to make explaining linked data easier?)
    • How to obtain the requisite background. Provide links/tutorials etc.
    • Tech specs necessary to do the course -- what programs you'll need installed on your computer, will you need access to a web server etc.?

     

    Program audience (adapted from: http://www.semanticlibrary.net/2008/04/18/learning-the-semantic-web/ )

     

    Brainstorm here!

     

    • Learners are likely to be in the middle-ground of early adopters. They are enthusiastic about new technology and keen to learn more, but may not have found the time (or motivation, or practical hands-on project to practice skill-building) to examine RDF, OWL and other aspects of the Semantic Web in detail.
    • They are likely to be in work roles involving technology, at all types of libraries. Level of technology involvement in the workplace is likely to vary widely from ERM specialists, to reference/techie staff, to web developers, to cataloging department staff without any technical experience beyond following detailed step-by-step procedures for cataloging with the local ILS.
    • Learners are likely to benefit from online discussion to share ideas and knowledge
    • Learners are likely to want examples where they can see technologies and concepts in practice
    • Learners are likely to want exercises where they can get "hands on" practice
    • Learners will want clear takeaways from the course such as future learning steps or applications for their work

     

    Week 1: What is the semantic web?

     

    • Overview of evolution
    • Where we are now (e.g. semantic web patterns)
    • Where we might be in 2-3 years (need for killer app?)
    • Why is it important - what can you do with the semantic web?
    • What libraries are doing about it

     

     

    Week 2: Components

     

    • Standards
    • Concepts (overview)
      • What's special about RDF?
      • What's an ontology?
        • Importance/use of ontologies:
    • Tools

     

    Week 3: Hands-on

     

     

    Week 4: Applications in libraries, research, data and science

     

     

    Week 5: Summary

     

    • Does the semantic web matter? Trends?
    • Ideas for how to use it in your work - supporting library users, researchers, and providing library services?
    • Further reading and resources:

     

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