Semantic Web Modules
This is a list of possible modules related to the semantic web that might be of use with a Drupal-based ELN. We try to include only those that are known to be fairly mature and reliable. User ratings of these modules are available on the Drupal Modules website. Modules listed below are for Drupal version 6.x. The newer version 7.x will have much of the Semantic Web capabilities integrated into core, so many of these modules will be unnecessary and/or replaced or upgraded by something different.
| Module Name | General Description | Use in an ELN |
|---|---|---|
| RDF | RDF is a W3C standard for modeling and sharing distributed knowledge based on a decentralized open-world assumption. Any knowledge about anything can be decomposed into triples (3-tuples) consisting of subject, predicate, and object; essentially, RDF is the lowest common denominator for exchanging data between systems. Uses the ARC2 library. | Basic functionality needed for any Semantic Web approach for data linking and sharing. Data from experiments should be accessible in RDF format in order to be widely shared and analyzed. |
| RDF CCK | The RDF CCK module allows site administrators to map each content type, node title, node body and CCK field to an RDF term (class or property). | The Content Construction Kit (CCK) allows custom variable types, which can be very useful when configuring an experiment. This module allows data for that custom type to then be exposed as RDF data for querying via SPARQL or analysis using other Semantic Web approaches. |
| Neologism | Neologism is a lightweight web-based vocabulary editor and publishing tool built with Drupal. It makes RDF vocabulary authoring easy and fun. Just create a vocabulary, add classes and properties to it, and your vocabulary is instantly published and available online! Several formats are supported via content negotiation: HTML, RDF/XML and N3. | Makes creation of different taxonomies and integration with the Semantic Web capabilities smoother. |
| SPARQL | SPARQL is a query language for pattern matching against RDF graphs. The syntax resembles SQL, making for a friendly learning curve, but SPARQL is far more powerful, enabling queries spanning multiple disparate (local or remote) data sources containing heterogeneous semistructured data. | Key module for giving widespread access to RDF encoded data for a given website or ELN setup. |
| SIOC | SIOC (Semantically-Interconnected Online Communities) project is an open specification for describing communities using online discussion forums or blogs, leading to what some may term "distributed conversations". At the moment, online communities are islands that are not interlinked, and the SIOC ontology has been proposed to not only link these communities but to leverage data in ways that were previously unknown. | A useful, widely used ontology to have to enable sharing of personal data from online communities or make it available to other online communities. Will probably grow in value as more online scientific communities implement this standard. |