The Open University Linked Data – data.open.ac.uk
Enrico Daga, Mathieu d’Aquin, Alessandro Adamou, Stuart A. Brown · Semantic Web · 2016
The article reports on the evolution of data.open.ac.uk, the Linked Open Data platform of the Open University, from a research experiment to a data hub for the open content of the University. Entirely based on Semantic Web technologies (RDF and the Linked Data principles), data.open.ac.uk is used t o curate, publish and access data about academic degree qualifications, courses, scholarly publications and open educational resources of the University. It exposes a SPARQL endpoint and several other services to support developers, including queries stored server-side and entity lookup using known identifiers such as course codes and YouTube video IDs. The platform is now a key information service at the Open University, with several core systems and websites exploiting linked data through data.open.ac.uk. Through these applications, data.open.ac.uk is now fulfilling a key role in the overall data infrastructure of the university, and in establishing connections with other educational institutions and information providers.