Re: Education

Thanks Sarven,
Sounds like you have flesh on very much the sort of thing I was thinking.
And in fact you are reporting success too, which is great.
And yes, definitely turtle/n3, and even the command line world too!
Very best
Hugh
On 12 Jul 2014, at 13:38, Sarven Capadisli <info@csarven.ca> wrote:

> On 2014-07-12 13:02, Hugh Glaser wrote:
>> The other day I was asked if I would like to run a Java module for some Physics & Astronomy students.
>> I am so far from plain Java and that sort of thing now there was almost a cognitive dissonance.
>> 
>> But it did cause me to ponder on about what I would do for such a requirement, given a blank sheet.
>> 
>> For people whose discipline is not primarily technical, what would a syllabus look like around Linked Data as a focus, but also causing them to learn lots about how to just do stuff on computers?
>> 
>> How to use a Linked Data store service as schemaless storage:
>> bit of intro to triples as simply a primitive representation format;
>> scripting for data transformation into triples - Ruby, Python, PHP, awk or whatever;
>> scripting for http access for http put, delete to store;
>> simple store query for service access (over http get);
>> scripting for data post-processing, plus interaction with any data analytic tools;
>> scripting for presentation in html or through visualisation tools.
>> 
>> It would be interesting for scientists and, even more, social scientists, archeologists, etc (alongside their statistical package stuff or whatever).
>> I think it would be really exciting for them, and they would get a lot of skills on the way - and of course they would learn to access all this Open Data stuff, which is becoming so important.
>> I’m not sure they would go for it ;-)
>> 
>> Just some thoughts.
>> And does anyone knows of such modules, or even is teaching them?
>> 
>> Best
>> Hugh
>> 
> 
> Hi Hugh,
> 
> I teach a few introductory lectures on Linked Data, HTTP, URI, RDF, SPARQL as part of a Web and Internet Technologies course to students in Business IT at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Majority of the students do not have a developer profile. Focus of the lessons is not about the inner technical details of these technologies, but via some practical work, what they can take away: understanding some publishing and consuming challenges for data on the Web, and potentially communicating problems and solutions to their colleagues with technical expertise in the future.
> 
> What I have observed:
> 
> * Before going any further, examples on the state of things and the potentials of what can be accomplished is vital. If they are not remotely excited, it sets the tone for the remainder of the lectures.
> 
> * At first they do not completely take the importance of HTTP/URI seriously. "They've seen them, they know" mentality. The exercises around that is about designing their own URI patterns for their site/profile, and repeating the importance of "Cool URIs" and what that entails over and over.
> 
> * Majority of the students understand the RDF data model and can express statements (either using human language or one of the formats). I usually bounce back and forth between drawing graphs on the board, and showing, dereferencing, browsing RDF resources, and pointing at people and objects in and outside of the room.
> 
> * As far as their comprehension for the formats i.e., how to write some statements that's mostly syntactically valid, Turtle/N-Triples lead the pack. RDF/XML and RDFa usually turn out to be a disaster. Most do not bother with JSON(-LD).
> 
> * Once they get the hang of Turtle, they do relatively well in SPARQL. I've noticed that it is via SPARQL examples, trials and errors, they really get the potential of Linked Data. Along the way, it appears to reassure them that RDF and friends are powerful and will come in handy.
> 
> 
> IMHO:
> 
> Although I welcome them to use any format for exercises and whatnot, I encourage them to use Turtle or N-Triples. I tell them that learning Turtle is the best investment because they can use that knowledge towards SPARQL. However, Turtle comes with a few syntactical "traps" and declarations, that, I secretly wish that they use N-Triples instead to learn to create statements for the sake of simplicity. After all, N-Triples is as WYSIWYG as it gets!
> 
> With a blank slate:
> 
> In most cases: I have a strong bias towards *nix command-line toolbox and shell scripting over alternative programming languages. *Out of the box*, the shell environment is remarkable and indispensable. The documentation is baked in. Working in this environment leads to some design decisions as described in http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html. One can do everything from data processing, transformations, inspection, analysis to parallelization here. Besides, it is the perfect glue for everything else.
> 
> 
> -Sarven
> http://csarven.ca/#i

-- 
Hugh Glaser
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Received on Monday, 14 July 2014 15:01:32 UTC