[Buildingdata] Re: (Open) (Geo) Linked data for Leeds

Fri Jul 29 11:03:00 BST 2011

Hi buildingdata, (cc Peter, Ant, opendata),

I just thought I'd share progress in developing Linked Data at Leeds with you.

I've attended some meetings and developed various documentation this
week that may be useful to others.

One meeting was a seminar about sustainable cities led by Tom Riordan
(Chief Executive from the local council) which was mainly attended by
people from organisations in the region. I gave a very brief heads up
about the Linked Data development I am trying to get going and
encouraged people to join the opendatagroup list that was set up by my
Web Team colleague Jeremey and which is linked from our
http://data.leeds.ac.uk placeholder page for Linked Data. My notes
from that meeting are available as a Google docs document via the
following URL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iB1tuKJnQxhhEPVLVw4v93AOP0PAzDWNkxGsbe6CFys/edit?hl=en_US

I met with Peter Jimack (the University of Leeds Dean of Engineering)
and presented to him a Case for Support document draft
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QdQXRJUQqW2Ug7ewihYAv1lj4W3JbrT2dMrp9AANYq4/edit?hl=en_US).
I prepared some slides
(https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Adv3K0q9iX7kZDRwMndqcV8xNWZ4amhkOWR3&hl=en_US&pli=1)
which link to other infomation about developing Linked Data for Leeds
- including a Business Case document
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iUMWsoPeP3DnYvj0tQILB7DzqHiduEE8JD6vwsS_Hj4/edit?hl=en_US)
which is more detailed than the Case for Support document and which is
aimed more broadly to gather support for the development of Linked
Open Data (LOD) for the University of Leeds (something easily reworded
for other universities).

The next steps I am taking are to arrange meetings with the Library
team and the Information Systems and Services team. Following this, I
plan to arrange something of a joint meeting and try to get two
Pro-Vice-Chancellors on side (our new PVC for research - David Hogg,
and the PVC for teaching and learning - Viv Jones).

There are a few steps to go before I approach our Estates Services
department and deal with physical building infrastructure data, but
thanks to you, I don't think we're too far behind at Leeds and I'm
confident about getting support from the top. With that I hope to get
on to the really geographical work and data munging at the bleeding
edge.

Bye for now,

Andy

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Andy Turner <a.g.d.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Chris, You are an inspiration! Yes I scrolled through
> grinder.pl and plan to have a go as and when and let you know. As a
> Java developer I always think about bending that, but I am not about
> to just reimplement for the sake of it. I think it is more key for me
> to get back to grips with developing RDF/XML and do so in a pragmatic
> way for an example organisation that also has some open data, my test
> case is the Centre for Computational Geography to which I attribute
> most things I have done. One of the big issues is to get the metadata
> right, and ideally AFAICT there would be a lot of it. I will favour an
> incremental approach to this as with most things. So, before I focus
> more on the code and data I will focus more on outreach. this is while
> we get support from the top at Leeds which is key to the inreach
> (although there could be a bit of chicken and egg with this).
>
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Christopher Gutteridge
> <cjg at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Congratulations!
>>
>> Have you had a look at grinder? It's a handy solution for smaller datasets
>> you need to frequently rebuild from spreadsheets.
>>
>> On 30/06/11 11:05, Andy Turner wrote:
>>>
>>> Just to follow up, the meeting last week with the University of Leeds
>>> Web Team went well and there is now a placeholder at
>>> http://data.leeds.ac.uk and a redirect from http://id.leeds.ac.uk.
>>> Jeremy Harmer the University of Leeds Webmaster set these up along
>>> with two emails one just for the development team and the other which
>>> is more open. I have copied this email to the more open list which all
>>> the developers are also subscribed too.
>>>
>>> This is all being done on the back burner right now, but we are trying
>>> to get support from top level managers by developing a document that
>>> provides a clear business case and trying to arrange a meeting to
>>> present this and get top level support.
>>>
>>> LOD is such a nebular thing! The next meeting I have is with a
>>> representatives developing Leeds City Council LOD
>>> (http://opendata.leeds.gov.uk/). There is a lot of common ground and
>>> hopefully we can march in step to support each other.
>>>
>>> Your help and advice is much appreciated.
>>>
>>> I am looking forward to getting my hands dirty with the coding and
>>> generation of the RDF/XML...
>>>
>>> Bye for now,
>>>
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 5:12 PM, Andy Turner<a.g.d.turner at gmail.com>
>>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I've sent the briefing document (as per the attached PDF) which I
>>>> prepared for the meeting I have on Thursday with Jeremy and the Web
>>>> Team plus a few others here at Leeds. Thanks for showing us the way.
>>>> Hopefully we can work together on this soon and I can do something
>>>> leading edge on the geo side of things.
>>>>
>>>> (Sorry if such an attachment causes anyone issues, but I thought it
>>>> was best done this way.)
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 2:10 AM, Andy Turner<a.g.d.turner at gmail.com>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I thought I'd share progress on the breifing document at an early
>>>>> stage for those interested in seeing how it shapes up. A first very
>>>>> rough and incomplete draft focussing on people and organisations is
>>>>> (hopefully) available for viewing via the following link:
>>>>> UniLeodis -
>>>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EgzYQKK1iq5SMS1Hn1hOfVO7yvJrGYESpxZCBPIOmwc/edit?hl=en_US
>>>>>
>>>>> All the geodata that Chris mentioned is of interest - I would describe
>>>>> it as data representing relatively slow changing things (i.e. things I
>>>>> would expect to change little day to day). A map of the current layout
>>>>> is most important, but it is also useful to keep a track of how the
>>>>> campus has changed and perhaps provide views of it from the past...
>>>>>
>>>>> I want to have detailed 2D and 3D OpenStreetMap like data for the
>>>>> Leeds main campus (which has some interesting high level walkways
>>>>> connecting buildings at various levels). I am keen (as part of another
>>>>> project) to get students to do the mapping as they explore campus.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am aware of reasonably good web based room data for rooms that are
>>>>> bookable and I know that the Estates department have data about
>>>>> buidlings which could be good to integrate. Anyway, I think it's too
>>>>> big a job to plan the details of now. It is perhaps best to get an
>>>>> idea of what are liekly to be the easieist and most rewarding things
>>>>> to do first. My thinking is that it would be best to start with data
>>>>> about people, organisations and courses. A geospatial map of
>>>>> buildings, rooms, facilities, points of sale, and car parking
>>>>> (enabling spatial search and routing applications) that links to
>>>>> further information would also be grand.
>>>>>
>>>>> I expect that having a convincing use case and external funding would
>>>>> help with us getting support for this from the top, but it may be
>>>>> enough of a driver that others are getting stuck in and investing in
>>>>> this.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Christopher Gutteridge
>>>>> <cjg at ecs.soton.ac.uk>  wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (I suggested Andy ask this list as the best way to find people who
>>>>>> actually know/care about this subject).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Can anyone give him any ideas?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll get it started by saying we have three main kinds of geographic
>>>>>> data;
>>>>>>
>>>>>> * Physical locations; sites, buildings, rooms
>>>>>> * Points-of-Service, (usually located in a building or room) which may
>>>>>> offer services or produces, and may have opening hours.
>>>>>> * Location features (or in some cases an explicitly stated lack of a
>>>>>> feature); to describe properties of rooms and buildings, such as type
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> seating, availability of a recycling bit, the fact a building is
>>>>>> residential.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We could also add "points of interest" like sculptures, but right now
>>>>>> we
>>>>>> lump these into points-of-service.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 15/06/11 11:02, Andy Turner wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've copied in Jeremy Harmer to this post who is convening a meeting
>>>>>>> next week with his web team (and me) so we can take this forward and
>>>>>>> build on your good work and collaborate with you (and aim to help
>>>>>>> others in the process).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I am preparing a brief document to introduce linked data, open data,
>>>>>>> and geo data and provide a vision of what we get when we put it all
>>>>>>> together. I will consider how the University of Leeds currently
>>>>>>> organises its data, particularly its web content, and how we can move
>>>>>>> to a standard model. I will have to caveat that I do not know
>>>>>>> everything about how our university (Leeds) organises its data.
>>>>>>> Recently, I have been asking if Leeds has something akin to a data
>>>>>>> policy.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> These are exciting times! So this is a bit of a heads up and call for
>>>>>>> support. Hopefully we will get support from the top at Leeds and
>>>>>>> quickly get up to speed. I know there is a lot to do as I have been
>>>>>>> following efforts elsewhere, but there is a lot of good groundwork at
>>>>>>> Leeds to build on (please excuse the pun).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have a clear vision in my own mind about where we as individuals and
>>>>>>> organisations should be heading with our data. For Leeds, I have a
>>>>>>> good idea about the steps we should be taking. Big vision, small steps
>>>>>>> and time to get my own house in order per se.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks in advance for your help and support. If you would like to
>>>>>>> provide me with advice at this stage please do either privately or via
>>>>>>> the list. I tend to blog about what I'm doing and what I'm reading,
>>>>>>> but I try my best to be considerate, so please have confidence in me.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I will share a draft of the document as soon as I get some meat on it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Andy Turner
>>>>>>> http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.turner
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Buildingdata mailing list
>>>>>>> Buildingdata at ecs.soton.ac.uk
>>>>>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/buildingdata
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Christopher Gutteridge -- http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1248
>>>>>>
>>>>>> / Lead Developer, EPrints Project, http://eprints.org/
>>>>>> / Web Projects Manager, ECS, University of Southampton,
>>>>>> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
>>>>>> / Webmaster, Web Science Trust, http://www.webscience.org/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Buildingdata mailing list
>>>>>> Buildingdata at ecs.soton.ac.uk
>>>>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/buildingdata
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Buildingdata mailing list
>>>>> Buildingdata at ecs.soton.ac.uk
>>>>> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/buildingdata
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Buildingdata mailing list
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>>>>
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> --
>> Christopher Gutteridge -- http://id.ecs.soton.ac.uk/person/1248
>>
>> / Lead Developer, EPrints Project, http://eprints.org/
>> / Web Projects Manager, ECS, University of Southampton,
>> http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
>> / Webmaster, Web Science Trust, http://www.webscience.org/
>>
>>
>
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