Universities and Colleges in the Giant Global Graph

November 13th, 2009 by adam

Earlier this week I facilitated a session at the 2009 CETIS Conference to explore some of the opportunities that Linked Data might offer to universities and colleges and to help us (CETIS in particular but also JISC and our peer “innovation support centre”, UKOLN) work out what work should be done to move us closer to realising benefits in the management and delivery of Higher and Further Education from adoption of Linked Data principles either by universities and colleges or by other public or private bodies that form part of the overall H/FE system. An approximately factual account of the session, relevant links etc is available from the Universities and Colleges in the Giant Global Graph session page. This post contains more personal rambling opinion.

Paul Walk seems to be the first of the session participants to blog. He captures one of the axes of discussion well and provides an attractive set of distinctions. It seems inevitable that the semantic vultures will circle about terminological discussions and it is probably best for us to spell out what we mean rather than use sweeping terms like “Linked Data” as I do in the opening paragraph. My inclination is not to be quite as hard-line as Paul about the necessity for RDF to be used to call it “Linked Data”. Vultures circle. In future I’ll draw more clear distinctions between the affordances of open data vs linked data vs semantic web, although I tried to put whitespace between linked data and semantic web in my session intro (PPT). Maybe it would be more clear for some audiences to consider the affordances of particular acts such as selecting a recognised data licence of various types, assigning persistent URIs to things, … but this is not useful for all discourse. Talking of “recognised data licence[s]” may also allow us to sidestep the “open” meme conflation: open access, open source, open process, open-for-reuse…

Actually, I’m rather inclined to insert a further distinction for and use the (fantasy) term “Minty Data” for linked-data-without-requiring-RDF (see another of Paul Walk’s posts on this). Why? Well: it seems that just posting CSV, while that might be better than nothing from an open data point of view doesn’t promise the kind of network effects that 4-rules linked data (i.e. Berners-Lee rules) offers. On the other hand it does seem to me that we might be able to get quite a long way without being hard core and are a lot less likely to frighten people away. I’m also aware that there is likely to be a paradigm shift for many in thinking and working with web architecture, in spite of the ubiquitousness of the web.

Minty Data rules, kind-of mongrel of ROA and 4-Rules Linked Data:

  1. Assign URIs to things people are likely to want to refer to
    • having first thought through what the domain model behind them is (draw a graph)
    • make the URIs hackable, predictable, structured
    • consider Logical Types (ref Bertrand Russell)
    • don’t change them until Hell freezes over
  2. use HTTP URIs for the usual reasons
  3. Return something machine-readable e.g. JSON, Atom
      • and something human-readable (but this ISN’T Minty Data)

      For Extra-strong mints:

      1. Link to other things using their URIs, especially if they were minted by you
      2. When returning information about a thing, indicate what class(es) of things it belongs to
      3. If the “thing” is also described in one or more encyclopedia or other compendium of knowledge, express that link in a well-known way.
        • and if it isn’t described but should be, get it added if you can

        There was a bit of discussion in the conference session about the perceived investment necessary to make Linked Data available. I rather felt that this shouldn’t necessarily be the case given software such as D2R and Triplify. At least, the additional effort required to make Minty Data available having first thought though the domain model (information architecture) shouldn’t be much. This is, of course, not a universally-trivial pre-requisite but it is an objective with quite a lot of literature to justify the benefits to be accrued from getting to grips with it. It would be a mistake to suggest boiling the ocean; the conclusion I make is that a readiness-criterion for anyone considering exposing Linked/Minty Data is that consideration of the domain model related to that data has been considered or is judged to be feasible or desirable for other reasons.

        The BBC approach, described in many places but quoted from Tom Scott and Michael Smethurst in Talis Nodalities here,  seems to reflect the above:

        “I’d like to claim that when we set out to develop [bbc.co.uk]/programmes we had the warm embrace of the semantic web in mind. But that would be a lie. We were however building on very similar philosophical foundations.

        In the work leading up to bbc.co.uk/programmes we were all too aware of the importance of persistent web identifiers, permanent URIs and the importance of links as a way to build meaning. To achieve all this we broke with BBC tradition by designing from the domain model up rather than the interface down. The domain model provided us with a set of objects (brands, series, episodes, versions, ondemands, broadcasts etc) and their sometimes tangled interrelationships.”

        On the other hand, I do perceive a threat arising from the ready availability of software to add a sprinkle of RDF or SPARQL endpoint to an existing web application or scrape HTML to RDF, especially if RDF is the focus of the meme. A sprinkle of RDF misses the point if it isn’t also based on a well-principled approach to URIs and their assignment and the value of links; a URI isn’t just the access point for a cranky API returning structured data. The biggest threat to the Linked Data meme may be a deluge of poor quality RDF rather than an absence of it.

        Posted in cetis-2009-conference, cetis-2009-ggg, semantic technologies | 1 Comment »

        CETIS Informal Horizon Scan - March 2009

        July 8th, 2009 by adam

        In March 2009 we conducted an informal Horizon Scan as an internal exercise in identifying areas of work to prioritise in the coming year. A public version is now available.

        As the caveat at the start of the document notes, this was not intended to be a thorough or robust process but feel free to comment with any burning issues that you think we missed…

        Posted in horizon scan | 7 Comments »

        Technology Forecast

        July 8th, 2009 by adam

        PriceWaterhouseCoopers started publishing their annual Technology Forecast book as a quarterly journal during 2008 . Previous editions of the PwC Technology Forecast have focussed on the question of IT in support of increasing pressures on “business agility”, pressures also felt in post-compulsory education, whereas the latest edition pays particular attention to the increased significance of semantic web technology in practice. This latter actually seems to do a pretty good job of providing an introduction to some of the concepts and technology choices for the semantic web, at least for an IT professional.

        Posted in horizon scan | No Comments »

        Objects in this Mirror are Closer than they Appear: Linked Data and the Web of Concepts

        June 25th, 2009 by adam

        There is a whole collection of web technology that has been largely ignored or misunderstood. Sometimes we technical folk just made it over-complicated in great fits of excitement for the potential a new technology. This has probably been the case with a collection of technologies, both specifications and architectural practices, that can be grouped under the heading “semantic web”. But things are changing.

        The change is heralded by the meme of Linked Data which originated with Tim Berners-Lee in 2006. There are two really significant things about this meme: it is intelligible; it translated to real change. The really-really significant thing is that, although it is intelligible, it remains a solid foundation for some of the more pointy-headed technology; its adoption represents an important platform for change. It will affect how people think about and realise interoperability of data.

        The TED presentation by Tim Berners-Lee, “The Next Web” is a good motivational introduction to why this is a significant movement and includes a really succinct boiling-down of the technical ideas: assign URIs to concepts; relationships are links. There is nothing technically-new here. That is the point! It is intelligable.

        If Linked Data remained only an intelligable idea, it would not be so interesting. An idea that is acted upon is both more potent and, depending on the enacting agent, an indicator of changing practice. Tom Scott of BBC Earth provided an interview to PWC Technology Forecast recently, “Traversing the Giant Global Graph“, in which “Scott describes how the BBC is using Semantic Web technology and philosophy to improve the relevance of and access to content on the BBC Programmes and Music Web sites in a scalable way.” Adoption by such a high profile organisation gives those who, like CETIS, have been advocating a semantic-web-inspired approach to interoperability a real boost.

        In a completely different corner of human endeavour, the Royal Society of Chemistry has been doing things in the same flight-path. RSC Prospect enriches journal articles through chemical and biological ontology terms and the recently-acquired ChemSpider provides “access to almost 21.5 million unique chemical entities sourced from over 200 different data sources and integration to a multitude of other online services” organised according to chemical structure. These are not there yet, as Linked Data, but the direction of travel seems clear.

        When a major media player and the publishing arm of a professional society are making progress on what was esoterica only a few years ago, I think I’m safe in predicting change is afoot; sense and significance will be apparent to a wider set of people and I’m optimistic that members of the education sector will number highly in that set.

        Linked Data and the web of concepts is closer than it may appear.

        Posted in cetis-standards, semantic technologies | 3 Comments »

        SOA and TOGAF: A Good Fit?

        April 21st, 2009 by adam

        As both service orientation and Enterprise Architecture are current themes that JISC considers to be strategically valuable, I thought the recent article from ZapThink on the topic “SOA and TOGAF: A Good Fit?” is very timely.

        To whet your appetite, their conclusion includes:

        “How would you decide whether to use TOGAF ADM or not for your SOA initiative? If you have already adopted a SOA approach, and its working for you, then the ADM won’t necessarily add value for you in the short term. However it won’t do any harm to evaluate your approach against the ADM. You may find some valuable lessons to be learned from TOGAF. However, if you haven’t yet adopted a SOA approach, or if you are experiencing problems with your approach, then the ADM is certainly worth considering.”

        Both service-orientation and architecture are explored in “Technology Change in Higher and Further Education - a service oriented approach“, where members of CETIS and guest authors present their “takes” in the context of Higher and Further Education. This work includes many other references to work supported by JISC and various perspectives from people whose thinking we think is important.

        Posted in soa | No Comments »

        The Problem with “Evaluating Standards”

        April 14th, 2009 by adam

        I’ve just uploaded an attempt, “Evaluating Standards - A Discussion of Perspectives, Issues and Evaluation Dimensions” (MS Word), to say in more than a few words why “Evaluating Standards” is easier to say than to do. For most of the issues there are no easy answers but I have tried to make some suggestions for a heuristic approach inspired by the Neilsen and Molich approach to usability. I’d like to acknowledge Scott Wilson for contributing his insight into what makes a good standard.

        Posted in cetis-standards, standards | No Comments »

        A Good Showing for the UK as IMS Learning Impact Finalists

        February 8th, 2009 by adam

        IMS recently posted the list of finalists for the 2009 “Learning Impact Awards”.

        Well done to all and in particular, to be a little partisan:

        • Glow - Scotland’s National Intranet - RM and Learning Teaching Scotland
        • Racing Academy - University of Bath and Lateral Visions
        • CURVE - Equella, The Learning Edge Europe and Coventry University
        • LEXDIS - University of Southampton
        • MrCute Moodle Repository System - Worcester College of Technology
        • SIMulated Professional Learning Environment (SIMPLE) - University of Strathclyde and University of Strathclyde Law School

        All but the first have been supported by JISC. Hurrah for the finalists and for JISC!

        I’m sure they will have an excellent time in Barcelona at the conference, where the finalists will be judged. Best wishes to them and watch out for the announcement of next year’s competition.

        Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

        Open Educational Resources and the Zachman Framework

        January 22nd, 2009 by adam

        The theme of Open Educational Resources (OER aka Open Educational Content, OEC) is clearly a topic of current interest but, I believe, often discussed from different perspectives. If we are to discuss OER, and specifically if are to discuss projects, programmes or initiatives around OER, do we need a structure to make more clear the perspectives? Does the Zachman Framework help?

        The Zachman Framework, devised by John Zachman about 20 years ago, is most commonly associated with the field of Enterprise Architecture and generally viewed as a 2-dimensional grid. Do not be put off by the “Enterprise Architecture” label; the Zachman Framework is really a way of understanding and structuring the components of a description of a system (in the general sense of the word). A quote from Zachman:

        “The Zachman Framework is not a methodology for creating the implementation (an instantiation) of the object. The Zachman Framework is the ontology for describing the Enterprise. The Framework (ontology) is a STRUCTURE whereas a methodology is a PROCESS. A Structure is NOT a Process. A Structure establishes definition whereas a Process provides Transformation.”

        The Zachman Framework, as it is described, is rather industrial in its terminology so some of the descriptions of the meanings associated with the cells in the grid need a bit of re-phrasing to be applicable to OER as do row headings like “technician” (would “custodian” or “support” be better?). For each cell, though, I can imagine a re-description consistent with the concepts of the Zachman Framework.

        My proposition is that the Zachman Framework is useful if, for each row/column intersection in the grid, we ask questions like: “do we have anything to say about this aspect” or “is this an aspect that I should be considering deeply or is it someone else’s concern”. Similarly, if discussing doing something under the category of OER: “which cells does our discussion cover” or, if developing a coordinated programme, “did we miss anything”.

        As the whole point of the Framework is about thinking at an “Enterprise” level, although that term is somewhat inappropriate to OER, it seems like a resonable approach to asking whether a set of planned interventions are consistent with achieving the changes we seek across the “Communication Interrogatives” (columns) and the “Reification Transformations” (rows). To diverge again from the industrial/manufacturing heritage of the Framework, maybe we should think about the “Enterprise” from more of a social viewpoint and ask, when considering the Operations row, “what is is about an OER-related intervention that seeks to change the capabilities and intentions of the various stakeholders?” I think sociologists would use the terms “structure and agency” here.

        What do you think?

        Posted in OER, cetis-content | No Comments »

        Grand Challenges at the CETIS 2008 Conference

        December 1st, 2008 by adam

        On the 25th of November I facilitated a session entitled “Grand Challenges in HE and FE”. The first half of the session was given over to a structured activity, “Future Backwards”. This activity, which worked well except that the groups should have been a bit smaller than 6, and the products created by the groups are available on the CETIS wiki. The second half of the session was devoted to free discussion. What follows is my account of the broad flow of the discussion, bringing out stated or implied challenges, “grand” or otherwise. It is unclear what effect the Future Backwards process had on the discussion but this process does dwell on the key events that influenced the current state and imagined future unreasonably bad and good states and the discussion often came back to questions of “how we got here” and the challenges of avoiding the problems our path to here seems to have been beset with.

        I will use “participant” to refer to someone who participated in the discussion. Audio files for a recording of the discussion are also available on the CETIS wiki.

        One non-specific challenge was identified as how to get to a point where decision-makers had well-grounded strategic understanding. In its various aspects, the current state of affairs seemed to have been influenced by reactivity, pulls in different directions and “tail steering”. We should not accept this for the future. One participant suggested that no-one really knew whether universities were cities or factories, references back to Andrew Feenberg’s keynote. Feenberg contrasted an industrially-inspired view of education with a “place of cosmopolitan interactions [the city] and enhanced communication¦It is not dedicated to the rigid reproductions of the same, the ‘one best way’, but to the flexible testing of possibilities and the development of the new- not hierarchical control but unplanned horizontal contacts; not simplification and standardization but variety and growth of the capabilities required to live in a more complex world.” (Transforming Technology, 2002). A different dimension of strategic understanding relates specifically to technology: what can it do, what can it not do and what could it do (sometimes unanticipated and often unintended consequences).

        An specific example of lack of strategic understanding of technology was cited as the implementation, effectively a realisation of the concept, of the VLE. Participants contended that the implementation of VLEs had largely not been to serve an institutional strategic purpose but, driven by a supply of funds made available by a government that believed IT had benefits, more because that is what everyone was doing. There is something similar here to the “no-one got sacked for buying IBM” adage.

        A great danger was perceived, arising from the consequences of society’s understanding of education. If what society is prepared to give is support for “here is the content, off you go, its up to you..” and the richer experience with social and tutorial input is reserved for those that can pay, what future for the country? The non-specific challenge is how to avoid going down this path and the fear was that we do not have the strategies to guide us. One specific challange was suggested: to direct people’s attention to what learning should be about by developing good communication tools embodying our best knowledge of how people learn. One participant noted that it was curious that a change of technology from books to ICT seems to have affected people’s judgement on the limitations of the value of “content”.

        The media was criticised as comprising an obstacle to progress on this non-specific challenge. From a realistic perspective, we cannot expect the media to work with more than stories. Stories attract people. Stories spread. The voice of the expert is lost until it plays a part in the hindsight of a story. Our naive experience of education as learners couples with a flawed, shallow and unreflective portrayal by the media. The media could have a really important role to play but no participant presented a strategy to effect the change.

        Three specific challenges were outlined, challenges relating to JISC and CETIS’s innovation remit but not entailing the development of specific technology. The questions to be asked are:

        1. what are the principles for implementing a technology to achieve results (learning results, but defining the measures is implicitly part of the challenge too)?
        2. how should JISC use return on investment (again, defining this is part of the challenge) to guide the programmes it delivers in the pursuit of “innovation”?
        3. what are the factors for successful use of technology?

        In summary, the participants in the Grand Challenges session seemed to feel that they had a realistic view on the education and technology landscape are were generally rather dissatisfied with where we are now. Strategic understanding is key.
        Many specific points have been missed from the above account, generally when they referred back to an idea mentioned earlier in the discussion. I believe I have conveyed the general flavour above. If you want more, listen to the recordings (page with links).

        Posted in cetis-2008-challenge, cetis-2008-conference | No Comments »

        SOA and Spaghetti Bolognese

        November 12th, 2008 by adam

        What does eating Spaghetti Bolognese and service-orienting your IT systems have in common? (Please indulge me in a little frivolity.)

        • You won’t find many restaurants selling Bolognese Sauce that you can combine with a bowl of spaghetti you made yourself and Parmesan from Tesco.
        • Factorising out a service is like pulling one strand of spaghetti from the bowl; you know it must be possible but everything is just so tangled.
        • When you do get a strand separated it is tempting to eat it in a way that makes a mess.
        • It can’t be done elegantly.
        • Chopping it up small works but isn’t very clever.

        “Spaghetti code” is already a well-used programmers’ term.

        Posted in soa | 2 Comments »

        « Older Entries
        Newer Entries »