Hello,
On 13/08/2010, at 16:46, Wood, Jamey wrote:
> I've but these two samples together to try to clarify my third question
> (about making LOD "browseable"), which is still murkiest to me. In the "43"
> example, the data is crafted to have a hierarchical path through the data
> ("state" -> "state/year" -> "state/year/month" ->
> "state/year/month/type_of_producer" ->
> "state/year/month/type_of_producer/energy_source"). In the "43b" example, no
> such attempt is made. Instead, 43b links each leaf data node back to the
> "root" of the dataset (" /lod/resource/datasets/43b") via a
> "dcterms:isReferencedBy" predicate and to a URI for the associated state
> (e.g. "/lod/resource/datasets/43b/AK") via a
> "openei:datasets/43b/terms/state" predicate. (This state URI is then linked
> to DBpedia's state URI via a "skos:closeMatch" predicate.)
>
> Thus, the 43b example would seem to be less amenable to HTML-based browsing.
> For example, note how these pages end up being overwhelming (and truncated):
>
> http://en.openei.org/lod/resource/datasets/43b
> http://en.openei.org/lod/resource/datasets/43b/AK
>
> So what I'm still wondering is whether striving for a non-overwhelming HTML
> browsing experience for a given set of LOD is a worthwhile goal.
My view on this is that these are two really separate issues. One is to have a
"good" data structure that can be used for several purposes; another is being
able to "HTML browse". By this I take it that you mean navigating the dataset
as if it were a hypertext, HTML-style (link at a time).
The database community has long established the concept of External schemas
(views) as the way to allow "special-purpose" access to a common Logical
database schema. Browsing should be regarded as one of those "special purpose"
uses. I think it is not practical to expect that applications can be built by
directly browsing the raw RDF structure.
Direct browsing of the raw RDF would only be meaningful for some developers
who may want to understand and find out what's in there, and even this is
debatable...
I would argue that one should have a special-purpose "view" over the raw RDF
data that makes it more amenable to "HTML-style" (i.e. hypertext) browsing, The
RDF structure itself should not be particulary biased towards browsing.
My 2c...
---
Daniel Schwabe Lab. Tecweb, Dept. de
Informatica, PUC-Rio
Tel:+55-21-3527 1500 r. 4356 R. M. de S. Vicente, 225
Fax: +55-21-3527 1530 Rio de Janeiro, RJ 22453-900, Brasil
http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~dschwabe
