We argue that data should be acquired now. Every day that goes by data is lost. We propose Semantic Squirrels, a community-enabled low technology solution to data acquisition to achieve this data acquisition, while other more difficult problems wait to be resolved

Glaser, Hugh

English

Southampton (e-Prints Soton)

Semantic Squirrels Hugh Glaser Electronics & Computer Science University of Southampton  Southampton SO17 1BJ +44 (0)23 8059 3670 hg@ecs.soton.ac.uk Abstract. We argue that data should be acquired now. Every day that goes by data  is  lost.  We  propose  Semantic  Squirrels,  a  community-enabled  low technology solution to data acquisition to achieve this data acquisition, while other more difficult problems wait to be resolved. Introduction The most exciting thing about the Web is the data. The most frustrating thing about the Web is the lack of data. In browsing the Web, it can often seem like the world began around 1990, although much  of  the  most  exciting  content,  such  as  census  data  and  government  records comes from earlier times. Where the data is not available in electronic form or at all, it can be created from paper records or from collective memory if there are sufficient cooperative  individuals.  Friends  Reunited  is  the  clear  example  of  the  latter. Unfortunately recreating this data is an expensive, patchy and error-prone activity. It is reasonable to suggest that most of the people who recorded the data we now search, aggregate and retrieve on the Web had little idea of the use to which we are now able to put it Turning to the Semantic Web, it is also reasonable to suggest that the same thing will happen again. We struggle as best we can to imagine the developments of the next few years, and what sort of systems will emerge. However, we do not know. What I do know is that when the brave new world of what the Web and Semantic Web becomes finally arrives, I will regret my lack of foresight in gathering data for it to feed on. I do not intend to have those regrets. So  what  are  the  major  barriers  to  gathering  this  data?  There  are  a  number  of questions: •  Where can it be found? •  What format should it be stored in? •  What should be kept, and how should it be structured (what is the ontology)? •  Where should it be kept? •  Who might have access to it? It is our contention that the actual gathering of data only has one real barrier – it needs to be found. Hugh Glaser – Semantic Squirrels Collecting Data As we go about our daily lives, it is evident that we leave electronic footprints, either deliberately or incidentally. Much of this can easily be recorded on the machines we use in our offices, homes, and that we carry around with us: our desktop machines, laptops, PDAs and the device formerly known as the mobile phone. Some  of  the  data  is  quite  obvious:  many  of  us  keep  our  photographs  online, maintain an email archive, and add extra data such as GPS tracks. In fact applications such  as  Jet  Photo  Studio  (http://www.jetphotosoft.com/web/)  that  combine photographs with GPS data and maps to present the photographs on a map against a calendar  begin  to  give  a  sense  of  what  might  be  achieved  if  more  data  can  be acquired. For example I can currently use my laptop to gather: Photographs; GPS data (I carry a GPS receiver at all times); All email, both in and out, in both Mail and Entourage formats; The MAC address of my current wifi access point; My IP address (after decoding any NATing); All files changed today; Current weather conditions; Address book; Diary; iTunes library listing; Safari (web browser) Bookmarks and History; Everything my laptop hears (but not always); what the camera sees once a minute. Almost all of this happens completely incidentally, and has been for many months. There are many other sources that could be added to this. This further data is even harder to gather and therein lies the problem. It is often “owned” by the application or operating system. For a person with the right expertise it  is  not  hard  to  get,  but  such  people  may  not  have  skills  in  the  Semantic  Web technologies. Similarly, people with Semantic Web skills may not have the skills to grasp the data. So  a  major  objective  of  the  Semantic  Squirrel  activity  is  to  separate  out  the functions of different experts. The Squirrels themselves are scripts and code which extract the data from wherever it is secreted, and put it away (in a Larder) for future processing. We have set up a Semantic Squirrel web site that aims to provide the focus for the activity (http://semantic-squirrel.org/). It is organized as a wiki, so that all interested parties can contribute, and it is expected that the structure of the site and the nature of Squirrels will evolve as time goes by. Users are invited to contribute Squirrels, as well as the scripts that take the data that has been squirreled away and turn it into more directly useful forms such as RDF against specific ontologies. Utilities to help to manage squirrels are also needed. In  conclusion,  we  believe  that  a  collaborative  activity  of  this  sort  has  great potential, and I have a personal and selfish interest; I want to get people to write Squirrels for me, especially of the “difficult” sort described above. So I hope that the reader feels inspired to get involved; visit http://semantic-squirrel.org/ to do so.  I  thank  my  colleagues,  the  EPSRC  AKT  Project  (GR/N15764/01)  and  the  EU ReSIST Project (IST-4-025764-NOE) for their support. 

Semantic Squirrels

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