1. Semantic MediaWiki
BCHB697

2. Outline Wikipedia & MediaWiki Semantic MediaWiki
Collecting and sharing community-based knowledge about "stuff"
Not good for lists, collections, aggregations
Semantic MediaWiki
...for semantic tagging of content
…using templates and categories to structure pages
…as triple-store
…for generation of aggregate/tabulated content
…as triple-store presentation layer
…for form-based user-input
BCHB697 - Edwards

3. Wikipedia & MediaWiki Wikipedia MediaWiki is the software "stack"
Individuals create, edit, discuss human readable text articles - knowledge
Simple markup language (WikiText)
Headings, links, images, tables, …
MediaWiki is the software "stack"
Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP)
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4. Wikipedia Page
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5. Wikipedia List Page
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6. Wikipedia List Page
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7. Wikipedia List Pages Who maintains the list?
How to keep the list content consistent with each page?
How can the information on each page be extracted to form/format the list?
What about other aggregate information?
Oldest, youngest president?
Longest serving?
Number of republican presidents?
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8. Wikipedia lacks Semantics
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9. Wikipedia lacks Semantics
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10. Semantic MediaWiki
Augment the MediaWiki software to permit semantic annotation of wiki pages inline with WikiText markup.
Name: Thomas Jefferson; Category: US President, US Vice President, Founding Father; Elected: 1801; Ordinal: 3; Terms: 2
... [[Name::Thomas Jefferson]] served [[Terms::2]] terms as [[Category::US President]]. ...
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11. Semantic MediaWiki Categories Properties Templates (…from MediaWiki)
Define the type of page: US President
Properties
Define the semantic values a page can hold – property name and datatype
Example: Name, Elected, Ordinal, Terms
Datatypes: Number, Date, Page, Text, …
Templates (…from MediaWiki)
Automatic, parameterized generation of WikiText incl. semantic annotations
BCHB697 - Edwards

12. Semantic MediaWiki …becomes… {{USPresident |name=Thomas Jefferson
|terms=2 }}
…becomes…
[[Name::Thomas Jefferson]] served [[Terms::2]] terms as [[Category::US President]].
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13. Thomas Jefferson (US President)
Semantic MediaWiki
{{USPresident
|name=Thomas Jefferson
|terms=2 }}
…becomes…
Thomas Jefferson (US President)
Elected
1801
Terms 2
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14. Semantic MediaWiki as Triple-Store
Conceptually, SMW is a triple-store:
TS: Subject, predicate, object
SMW: Page, property, value
The page URL in SMW becomes the URI
When the value of a SMW property is of datatype Page, we are linking URIs
SMW provides a triple-store "view" of each page's properties and their values
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15. Semantic MediaWiki as Triple-Store
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16. Semantic MediaWiki as Triple-Store
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17. Semantic MediaWiki as Triple-Store
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18. Semantic MediaWiki for generation of aggregations
Inline "queries" generate lists, tables, etc. based on semantic annotation
…becomes…
{{#ask:
[[Category:US President]] }}
George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, ...
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19. Semantic MediaWiki for generation of aggregations
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20. Semantic MediaWiki for generation of aggregations
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21. Semantic MediaWiki for generation of aggregations
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22. Semantic MediaWiki for generation of aggregations
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23. Semantic MediaWiki for generation of aggregations
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24. Semantic MediaWiki as presentation layer
Notice that SMW provides
Instance pages,
Tables, lists of related content,
WikiText presentation (incl. images)
SMW can also integrate with triple-store "back-end" to support sharing triples by SPARQL
SMW is a sharable triple-store with a presentation layer
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25. SMW triples via SPARQL
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26. Semantic MediaWiki for User-Contributions
The core use-case for MediaWiki is community (user) contributions
Can we expect users to edit this?
{{Motif
|accession=G59126YU
|aglycon=Ser/Thr
|collection=GM
|displayhgv=true
|glytoucan=G59126YU
|name=O-Linked mannose
O-Mannosyl Glycan / Mammalian
O-Mannosyl Glycan-Mammalian
|redend=true
|topology=GM.G59126YU }}
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27. Semantic MediaWiki for User-Contributions: Page Forms
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28. Semantic MediaWiki: Pros
Easy presentation of triple-store data-model
Inline queries provide access to data-model in arbitrary pages
User data-model provides for community contributions, and Page Forms makes it easy to develop controlled entry forms
Triple-store data can be exposed via SPARQL for others to re-use.
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29. Semantic MediaWiki: Cons
Not really designed for automated creating and editing of pages
Python modules for bots exist, but…
…slow.
Don't get full presentation flexibility of HTML + JavaScript
We have been exploring the use of JS widgets
Triples generated by SMW don't look quite like hand-crafted ontology driven triples…
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30. Exercise Check out the SMW sites:
GlycoMotif, and
SNPedia
Look at the source of an entry, look for templates and semantic content
Look at the property values in "Browse properties"
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