Gerald HIEBEL, Klaus HANKE, George BRUSEKER | October 09, 2017 | 10 am
The integration of data coming from different fields of research is a challenging task and various methodologies may be employed like geoinformation systems doing a spatial integration or relational databases performing an integration based on a database model. In this training we want to show a methodology for data integration that is based on ontologies, semantic technologies and geoinformation systems which is able to solve some fundamental problems in information integration like questions of identity and semantic nature of objects represented in different sources and the semantic relations between these objects. Ontologies are an abstract formal representation consisting of classes and properties to model the reality that we try to represent. We will introduce and use the CIDOC CRM ontology to integrate exemplary data related to mining activities in the past.
The process of assigning the fields of existing structured information sources to classes and properties of the ontology is called mapping. We will show how such mappings are done for exemplary data coming from surveying, archaeology, geology and history, all of them related to questions concerning archaeological or historic evidence of ancient mining activities.
Mini exercises in groups will aim at getting a hands on experience how the mapping process works. One part of realizing a useful conceptual model that is capable to answer real research questions is the building of a hierarchical thesaurus. Some aspects of organizing the specialized terms related to a domain will be addressed as well.
In the second part of the workshop we will go through the steps of implementing the process to perform the actual integration using Semantic Technologies.
We will show all the necessary steps with the applied software tools and the sample data in all stages of the process. The final step of the integration is to display the integrated data in a geoinformation system for visualization purposes and spatial analysis. Examples for research questions that can be answered with the integrated data will be given.
A detailed tutorial (https://www.uibk.ac.at/vermessung/cipa_ontology_task_group/tutorial.html) will be made available in the next weeks through the home page of the CIPA Ontology Task Group that organized the tutorial in cooperation with members of the CIDOC CRM Special Interest Group.