Re: [Information Gathering] next steps: syndication, good weblocation

Leo Sauermann wrote:
>
> Hi Information Gatherers,
>
> I thought about how to proceed with the user-interface for visualizing 
> the integrated data, looking at the discussing.
>
> It seems the effort to do the syndication is manageable, as Kingsley 
> has proven by implementing the aggregation already.
> We should focus on the format that we want people to make their data 
> sources available in. Once the data format is settled, and Kingsleys 
> integration works, we setup a website on some W3C URL related to SWEO 
> to make it accessible.
> And we can then encourage independent 3rd parties to aggregate the 
> data and provide the interface
>
> I asked Susie for her thoughts about this and she proposes exactly 
> this, stick to information gathering.
>
> Making a web interface that is user-friendly (especially newbie 
> friendly) and is managed by W3C is tricky, because W3C is a technology 
> standardization body and not an education body. We all agree that the 
> data has to be under an open license and that anyone can visualize it.
> So we will focus our efforts on syndication of data and providing a 
> stable SPARQL endpoint for the data + download facilities (and an RSS 
> feed).
> To decide on this, I would propose now to drop the portal ideas for 
> now. Anybody who wants can make a portal, if members of SWEO want to 
> make one, thats a new task force. (to concentrate our energy)
>
> (please give feedback)
>
> best
> Leo
>
Leo,

Now that we have RDF Data that is SPARQL accessible. The next step re. 
data presentation is a set of Tools for creating simple interfaces to 
the data.

When I create what I call "Dynamic Data Pages" (a page endowed with URI 
dereference capability amongst other thing) I simply perform the 
following tasks:

1. Build Query
2. Save SPARQL Query as specific file type (.rq for definitions only and 
.isparql for a dynamic page)
3. Leave Virtuoso to handle the page rendering or processing of 
responses to Semantic Web Agent (e.g RDF Browsers) that adhere to the 
Content Negotiation best practice

That said, you can go a little further re. development of user friendly 
front ends. The OAT Toolkit [1] is equipped with a Rich Collection of 
RDF aware controls (this is what we used to build the SPARQL Query 
Builder and RDF Browser). In addition to the Controls we also have an 
actual FormsBuilder [2] (think of this as an MS ACCESS tool for the Data 
Web).

Finally, you will notice that when all is said and done, the production 
of the user front end is basically about CSS and XSLT. These become the 
focal points for tweaking the output from any of the tools I've mentioned.

Links:
1. http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/demo/index.html (OAT Widget Demo)
2. http://demo.openlinksw.com/DAV/JS/formdesigner/index.html (Forms 
Designer)

Also remember that Exhibit and other Rich Internet Applications oriented 
tools also benefit from the fact that most SPARQL Endpoints support JSON 
serialization of results.


-- 


Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      Weblog: http://www.openlinksw.com/blog/~kidehen
President & CEO 
OpenLink Software     Web: http://www.openlinksw.com

Received on Friday, 30 March 2007 13:51:23 UTC