Real-life Semantic Web Technology-based Information Sharing via Linked Data Concepts – The Optique Project
My last few posts have discussed and addressed, what I believe to be, some of the current stumbling blocks to full adoption of Linked Data integration concepts and patterns in today’s Information Interoperability / Information Sharing space. I have attempted to address each of these current stumbling blocks by identifying additional components (the Enhanced parts) of my proposed Enhanced Linked Data Architecture and its current incarnation as the Enhanced Linkeddata Architecture for Persistent Sharing Environments (ELAPSE)™.
This post is the first in a series of “spotlight posts” I will use to illuminate practical examples of Real-life Semantic Web Technology-based Information Sharing via Linked Data Concepts. My first example is The Optique Project, which:
“Advocates for a next generation of the well-known Ontology-Based Data Integration (Access) (OBDA) approach to address the data access problem. OBDA systems address the data access problem by presenting a general ontology-based and end-user oriented query interface over heterogeneous data sources.”1
This project, in its recent 1.0 release, implemented a 3-layer architecture that offers several functions, including the ability to query/visualize data and to install/maintain an ontology and associated mappings, as well as an efficient query processing mechanism. Optique 1.0 allows users to pose queries, via a visual query formulation (VQF) interface, a SPARQL editor, or from a preexisting query catalog. The VQF exploits reasoning to show both explicit and implicit domain knowledge, which helps guide the formulation of the query. This architecture is depicted below:
Optique 1.0 System Architecture
Optique 1.0 is built on top of the fluid Operations Information Workbench (IWB) Open Source project, a generic platform for semantic data management. The IWB provides a shared triple store for managing the assets of Optique 1.0 [e.g. ontologies, mappings, query logs, (excerpts of) query answers, database metadata, etc.]. The IWB also provides generic interfaces and APIs for semantic data management (i.e. ontology processing APIs). In addition to these backend data management capabilities, the IWB provides an extensible user interface that follows a semantic wiki approach and is based on a rich, extensible pool of widgets for visualization, interaction, mashup, and collaboration.
The Optique Project is committed to making its results available in the form of open source software.
Optique Project Public Deliverables are downloadable here.
Details on the Optique European Partner Programme are available here.
A series of videos showing a demonstration of Optique 1.0 in action are available here.
The Optique Project addresses a number of the concerns, identified in my previous post, that are commonly associated with today’s RDF Stores and Linkeddata Framework solutions. The Optique Installation Wizards, both Basic and Advanced, provide a set of Open Semantic Web Modeling Solutions that reduce the perceived complexity of building the models necessary for successful Linked Data integration concepts and patterns implementation.
When focused on open source and open standards, Optique 1.0 does implement a number of the same components (the Enhanced parts) of my Enhanced Linkeddata Architecture for Persistent Sharing Environments (ELAPSE)™, including:
Information Workbench (IWB) – (Info and Download) and it’s Open Source HTML5 Pivot Viewer Solution (Download)
LogMap: Logic-based Methods for Ontology Mapping (Info and Download)
My next post will discuss a second practical example of Real-life Semantic Web Technology-based Information Sharing via Linked Data Concepts.
=david.l.woolfenden
1 http://www.optique-project.eu/