To create intelligent web services based on heterogeneously distributed data sources such as the collection data in cultural heritage organizations, data has to be made mutually interoperable and machine-understandable. Furthermore, the data has to be findable, accessible, and re-usable by both, data publishers and users, to eliminate duplicate work. To satisfy these FAIR principles, shared data infrastructure is needed.
One such shared data infrastructure is the Linked Open Data Infrastructure for Digital Humanities in Finland (LODI4DH). LODI4DH is a joint initiative of the Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG), the University of Helsinki (UH), and Aalto University Department of Computer Science. Its objective is to create living lab prototypes of centralized national Linked Data services for open science. The services include publication and utilization of datasets for data-intensive Digital Humanities (DH) research and application in structured, standardized Semantic Web formats via open interfaces.
The major components of LODI4DH include domain ontologies for data linking, harmonizing metadata models, publishing core datasets for re-use, and various Linked Data services for developers and online learning materials. LODI4DH is based on a large collaboration network and software infrastructure created by UH and Aalto University since 2003 as a part of a long line of national DH projects. These project collaborations between some 50 organizations have resulted in several in-use infrastructure prototypes and services, such as the ONKI ontology service, deployed as the Finto ontology service by the National Library of Finland, and the “7-star” Linked Data Finland model and service LDF.fi.
ONKI/Finto and Linked Data Finland services already have a wide user base. Also, applications based on them have made their way from academic research into real use. In addition, several joint research projects with foreign universities, such as the University of Oxford, Stanford University, University of Colorado Boulder, and the University of Pennsylvania, have used the Finnish Linked Data services for DH.
LODI4DH aims at harnessing all this work into sustainable services and integrating the work as a component into the EU ERIC DARIAH infrastructure in the future. LODI4DH infrastructure is open source, publishes open data, and is free of charge for everyone. Furthermore, the utilization potential of the LODI4DH infrastructure is expandable as the underlying Linked Data and Semantic Web technology can be and has been utilized in other fields of research.
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