Archaeology, Formality & the CIDOC CRM

Archaeology, Formality & the CIDOC CRM Leif Isaksen, Kirk Martinez & Graeme Earl ECS/Archaeology University of Southampton Thursday, 26 November 2009 1 Is the CIDOC CRM too hard? “The initial idea that the Domain Experts would be able to discuss their Domain in CRM terms proved difficult” (Cripps et al. 2004) “We found that ontology mapping requires close collaboration between computer scientists[...]museum professionals[...]and external experts who understand the CRM. “Collaboration among these parties is time and effort consuming...” (Addis et al. 2005) Thursday, 26 November 2009 “Es soll aber nicht verschwiegen werden, dass sich das CRM für Laien auf dem Gebiet der Informationsmodellierung nur nach ernsthafter Arbeit erschließen wird.” (Stein et al. 2005) “This strong interdependency between the mapping process and the implementation requires several feedback cycles between the mapping experts and the application developers” (Nussbaumer & Haslhofer 2007) 2 DB -> Ontology Map Thursday, 26 November 2009 3 DB Stuff -> Ontology Map Thursday, 26 November 2009 3 Interoperate with whom? The role of Microproviders ‘Long Tail’ of the Academic Community Small but valuable datasets Extremely limited resources Fidelity to source material is paramount Thursday, 26 November 2009 4 Formality Considered Harmful? Marshall & Shipman 1999 Formality as a trade-off: Improves computational power? Increases difficulty for users? Every user finds an equilibrium If effort increases with power, interoperability (i.e. ∞ computing power) becomes self-defeating? Thursday, 26 November 2009 5 The Goldilocks Effect Resources Cost/Benefit path of ‘easy adoption’ technology (e.g. MS Access, HTML) Computational Need ‘Complexity debt’ causes long-term scalability problems User-dependent threshold Thursday, 26 November 2009 6 The Goldilocks Effect Resources Cost/Benefit path of ‘Front-loading’ technologies (e.g. Semantic Web) Computational Need High barrier to entry reduces no. of participants User-dependent threshold Thursday, 26 November 2009 6 The Goldilocks Effect Resources Ideal Interoperability Cost/Benefit path has shorter ‘wavelength’, increasing the no. of pay-off points Computational Need User-dependent threshold Thursday, 26 November 2009 6 3 Steps to Heaven 3. Load 2. Transform 1. Extract Thursday, 26 November 2009 7 8 3 Steps to Heaven Hosting Validation RDF generation Literal Manipulation Canonical URI Mapping Instance URI generation Schema ‐> Ontology mapping Comprehension of task/workElow/ontology Thursday, 26 November 2009 7 FCH 1: Difficulties Arising 1.Cognitive Overhead 2.Tacit Knowledge 3.Enforcing Premature Structure 4.Different People, Different Tasks: Situational Structure Thursday, 26 November 2009 8 FCH 2: Mitigation Strategies 1.Identify Essentials for Task 2.Evaluate Cost/Benefit Trade Off 3.Gradual Formalization and Restructuring 4.Ephemeral Structure on Demand 5.Training, Facilitation and Intervention Thursday, 26 November 2009 9 Identify Essentials for Task Thursday, 26 November 2009 10 Identify Essentials for Task Thursday, 26 November 2009 10 Identify Essentials for Task Thursday, 26 November 2009 10 Identify Essentials for Task Thursday, 26 November 2009 10 Cost/Benefit Trade Off Table -> Ontology Mapping Thursday, 26 November 2009 11 Gradual Formalization/ Restructuring Excavation URI generation Thursday, 26 November 2009 Context URI generation 12 Ephemeral Structure on Demand Typology prediction Thursday, 26 November 2009 Type prediction 13 Training, Facilitation & Intervention online help Guides to best practice Recipe books http://linkeddata.org/guides-and-tutorials http://pedantic-web.org/ Thursday, 26 November 2009 14 Comparison & Visualisation Thursday, 26 November 2009 15 ‘Semantic Infrastructures in Archaeology’ Session at CAA 2010 Granada, Spain 6-9 April Join us! Thursday, 26 November 2009 16 References Matthew Addis et al., 2005. “New Ways to Search, Navigate and Use Multimedia Museum Collections over the Web,” in Museums and the Web 2005. Vancouver, Canada Paul Cripps et al., 2004. “Ontological Modelling of the Work of the Centre for Archaeology” Centre for Archaeology, English Heritage. Philipp Nussbaumer and Bernhard Haslhofer, 2007. “CIDOC CRM in Action – Experiences and Challenges,” in Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. Frank M. Shipman and Catherine C. Marshall, 1999. “Formality Considered Harmful: Experiences, Emerging Themes, and Directions on the Use of Formal Representations in Interactive Systems,” Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 8, no. 4. Regine Stein et al., 2005. Das CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model: Eine Hilfe für den Datenaustausch?, Mitteilungen und Berichter aus dem Institut für Museumskunde Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Thursday, 26 November 2009 17