Keynotes

Digital Humanities on the Semantic Web: from Infrastructure to Practical Applications, AI-based Knowledge Discovery, and Web of Wisdom

Speaker: Eero Hyvönen, Aalto University, Department of Computer Science and University of Helsinki, Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG)

Abstract: Publishing Cultural Heritage (CH) data and Digital Humanities (DH) has evolved in phases from text carving and handwriting to printing texts, to publishing texts on-line, to publishing FAIR linked data comprehensible to computers for data enrichment and analysis, and to AI-based knowledge discovery on the Web, a “Web of Wisdom” [1]. In this keynote, lessons learned are overviewed on developing a national Semantic Web infrastructure [2] and over 20 in-use systems based on it with up to millions of end users during 2002-2024 [3]. The underlying linked data in these applications include museum collections, bibliographical data in libraries, medieval and renaissance manuscripts, military history, biographies, narratives, historical letter data, archaeological finds, legislation, parliamentary speeches, and art. Targeted to Digital Humanities researchers, application developers, and the public, these systems contain a Linked Open Data (LOD) service with a live SPARQL endpoint that can be used with modest programming skills for DH research, and a ready-to-use semantic portal on top of it. This work has led into the so-called Sampo Model for creating and publishing CH Knowledge Graphs (KG) as LOD services and semantic portal User Interfaces (UI).

Short Bio: Eero Hyvönen is professor of semantic media technology at the Aalto University, Department of Computer Science, and director of Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG) at the University of Helsinki. His research has focused since 2001 on Semantic Web and Linked (Open) Data technologies, developing with his Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo) (https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/) the national semantic web infrastructure in Finland (https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/projects/lodi4dh/) and its applications in different areas, especially in Cultural Heritage and for Digital Humanities research (https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/applications/sampo/). Eero Hyvönen has published nearly 600 articles and books and got nearly 30 international and national honorary prizes and acknowledgements.

More information:
[1] Eero Hyvönen: Using the Semantic Web in Digital Humanities: Shift from Data Publishing to Data-analysis and Serendipitous Knowledge Discovery. Semantic Web, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 187-193, 2020.
[2] Eero Hyvönen: How to Create a National Cross-domain Ontology and Linked Data Infrastructure and Use It on the Semantic Web. Semantic Web, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 1499-1513, 2024.
[3] Eero Hyvönen: Digital Humanities on the Semantic Web: Sampo Model and Portal Series. Semantic Web, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 729-744, 2023.