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Large universities tend to spread their services across several departments to serve their substantial student base. It is very common for this to result in developing different systems, which end up in creating many disconnected data silos within the organization. Data isolation is one of the main bottlenecks that prevent unlocking the full potential behind exploiting such data, to provide a better experience at the level of application deployment and data analysis. The Open University is in the process of connecting their data silos by relying on the Linked Data principles within the LUCERO project. We present three use-cases through which we consume Linked Data produced at the Open University: (1) a student services use-case showing how we exploit data connections to deliver learning material related to courses through the university's main course information website; (2) a mobile course application that enables students to easily explore courses by subject, qualification or research topic; and (3) a Leanback TV service that provides students the ability to watch, with a degree of control, a set of podcasts grouped in different channels. Through these use cases, we highlight in this presentation the advantages and effects of consuming Linked Data within an organization.
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Consuming Linked Data within a Large Educational Organization
Fouad Zablith, Mathieu d’Aquin, Stuart Brown, Liam Green-Hughes@fzablith, @mdaquin, @stuartbrown, @liamgh
Knowledge Media Institute (KMi), Communications and IT
The Open University, UK
Scenario Student Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
The Open University has several systems and data sources spread across various departments
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
Scenario Student Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
Wow! Developing an application for Arts students,
to see what courses are relevant to an upcoming
exhibition would be fantastic!
Developer
ProblemStudent Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
Hi, can you give me access to the courses data?
System Admin
ProblemStudent Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
To access Planet through CIRCE-MI you need AACS to
validate your OUCU
ProblemStudent Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
To access Planet through CIRCE-MI you need AACS to
validate your OUCU
What is he talking about?!
ProblemStudent Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
Solution: Linked DataStudent Services Library
Media
Estate
Arts
Research
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcastsYouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU Events
Events
Books
Course Material
Solution: Linked Data
Courses
Qualifications
OpenLearn
Projects
People
PublicationsPodcasts
YouTube
iTunesU
Buildings
OU EventsEvents
Books
Course Material
Link
ed D
ata
Pla
tform
External Links
Linked Data at the OU
• The Open University is connecting its data repositories following the Linked Data principles.
• The LUCERO project has put in place a workflow to extract, integrate and expose the university data from existing repositories.
The LUCERO Workflow
Data Transformation Process
Initial Meeting with Data Owner
- Identify data- Get sample data- Identify Copyright Issues- Identify possible links- Identify users and usage
Data Modeling sessions
Lucero Core Team
Data Owner
Lucero KMi Team
Lucero members
- Find reusable ontologies- Map onto the data- Identify uncovered parts- Define URI Scheme
Data Modeling Validation
Lucero Core Team
Data Owner
Development of Extractor
URI Creation
Rules Definition
DeploymentLucero KMi Team
data.open.ac.uk
Querying the Data
Use Cases
Use Cases
Podcasts YouTubeiTunesU
CoursesQualificationsOpenLearn
Use Case 1: Student Services
• Study at the OU website is currently being enhanced with courses related material e.g. podcasts, YouTube and OpenLearn
• Finding the connections between courses and other material was a very costly process
• Linked Data made it easier to discover links between courses and related material
• This website is the main page of the OU business. The value of Linked Data here is not at the technical level, but at the business level of the organization
Use Case 1: Student Services
Use Case 2: Mobile Course Application
• This mobile application enables students to easily browse courses by qualification or subject of interests, with the ability to play related podcasts, YouTube or access related OpenLearn courses
• As in the previous case, identifying the relations between courses and other material maintained by different departments was expensive before Linked Data
• This use case shows how Linked Data can create new entry points for students to enroll in OU courses
Use Case 2: Mobile Course Application
Use Case 3: Leanback TV Webapp
• This application provides students the ability to watch automatically selected set of podcasts
• A fine grained selection of podcasts is hard to do through RSS feeds, without a high degree of customization
• Linked Data provided a very flexible way to generate the podcasts needed for the channels
• The value of Linked Data here is that it enables innovation. Developers can easily implement their ideas, without worrying about how to reach the data
Use Case 3: Leanback TV Webapp
Even More Applications
Conclusion
• Linked Data maximizes the value of your contributed data within an organization
• It is not about finding the killer app, but more about small improvements introduced by Linked Data, with big impact on the organization and data consumption
• Linked Data enables organizations, data managers and developers to focus on the “business-needs”, rather than on solving technological challenges
@fzablith
@mdaquin
@stuartbrown
@liamgh
http://lucero-project.info
http://data.open.ac.uk
Thank you!
