FactMiners.org - Museum Informatics
http://www.factminers.org/tags/museum-informatics
enCongratulations CIDOC-CRM SIG and the Year Ahead for #cidocCRM Development
http://www.factminers.org/content/congratulations-cidoc-crm-sig-and-year-ahead-cidoccrm-development
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><figure class="clearfix field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/factminers_yr4cidocCRM_hastags.png?itok=6RzCfVPK"><a href="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/images/factminers_yr4cidocCRM_hastags.png"><img typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-large" src="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/factminers_yr4cidocCRM_hastags.png?itok=6RzCfVPK" width="480" height="306" alt="" /></a></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/cidoccrm" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">#cidocCRM</a></li><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/museum-informatics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Museum Informatics</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/metamodeling" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Metamodeling</a></li><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/neo4j" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Neo4j</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/graph-database" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Graph database</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>FactMiners joins the Library, Archive, and Museum (LAM) tech community in congratulating the members of the <strong><a href="http://www.cidoc-crm.org/special_interest_members.html">CIDOC-CRM Special Interest Group</a></strong> for its kick-off to 2015 with release of <a href="http://www.cidoc-crm.org/official_release_cidoc.html#CIDOCCRM6.0">Version 6.0 of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) <strong>Conceptual Reference Model</strong></a>. In addition to the major point update to the model's Reference Document, the CIDOC-CRM SIG also <a href="http://www.cidoc-crm.org/collaborations.html#CIDOC-SPECTRUM">announced a collaboration with the UK-based <strong>Collections Trust</strong></a> to create a CIDOC-CRM extension for the Trust's widely-used and highly-regarded <a href="http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/spectrum"><strong>SPECTRUM</strong> standard for museums' <em>collections management systems</em></a>.</p>
<div class="image-left"><img src="/sites/default/files/images/collectionstrust_spectrum.png" width="500" height="375" alt="collectionstrust_spectrum.png" /></div>
<p>The CIDOC-CRM (tweeted/hashtagged here and elsewhere as <strong>#cidocCRM</strong>) serves as a <em>metamodel </em>providing definitions and a formal structure for describing the implicit and explicit concepts and relationships used in <strong>cultural heritage documentation</strong>. FactMiners is committed to <strong>#cidocCRM-driven design</strong> for our Open Source social game and exploratory personal and professional "serious fun" research platform.</p>
<p>"Early adopter use cases in the museum community are understandably focused on the descriptive, or ontological, aspects of the CIDOC-CRM. Designing and developing new software systems based on a rigorous metamodel is not the first thing you do with such a resource." said Jim Salmons, tech lead, researcher, and founder of FactMiners and <a href="http://www.SoftalkApple.com">The Softalk Apple Project</a>, "We are very encouraged by publication of the new edition of the Reference Document together with the SPECTRUM announcement. Given the mission and community of The Collections Trust, this is very good news for any museum techies and researchers interested in #cidocCRM-based development projects."</p>
<p>"For our part," Salmons continued, "FactMiners is announcing the launch of our <em>'Year of the #cidocCRM Full-Graph Deep Dive'.</em> We're asking Kindred Spirits interested in #cidocCRM-driven software design and development to tweet and tag their posts and communications with <strong>#cidocCRMdev</strong> and <strong>#cidocCRMgraph</strong>. These hashtags will help focus communication within the museum and broader LAM tech communities specific to these important emerging topics."</p>
<p>In addition to rallying interest in #cidocCRM-driven development within the museum informatics community, FactMiners will increase its outreach activity to engage the Neo4j and broader graph database communities in the exploration and development of a "full graph" implementation of the #cidocCRM. </p>
<p>FactMiners will also engage <a href="http://www.neo4j.com">Neo Technology</a>, the <a href="http://www.structr.org">Structr</a> folks, and vendors in the graph visualization community, like <a href="http://www.KeyLines.com">KeyLines</a>, to join us in making a contribution to the global cultural preservation movement by working together this year to create a new Neo4j/Structr-based replacement for the <a href="http://www.CIDOC-CRM.org">www.CIDOC-CRM.org</a> community website. This site is used as a central repository for the #cidocCRM model and its various information resources and news about this ISO standard metamodel. As new developers embrace the #cidocCRM, the community website will be increasingly important. An interactive Neo4j and Structr based site with "live document" visualizations and cross-referencing for the #cidocCRM metamodel will be an ideal way to showcase our web, app, and visualization technologies while making an important contribution to global cultural preservation.</p>
<p>"2015 looks to be the year that the CIDOC-CRM gets a real 'shakedown cruise' as a broader community of software designers and developers begin to explore and use this valuable resource within the cultural heritage community." Salmons said, "And FactMiners is happy to be a part of these exciting developments in the evolution of Internet and its use in the preservation and transmission of our cultural heritage. Keep up the great work CIDOC-CRM SIG! Full speed ahead #cidocCRMdev and #cidocCRMgraph!"</p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 03 Feb 2015 20:08:57 +0000Jim Salmons45 at http://www.factminers.orghttp://www.factminers.org/content/congratulations-cidoc-crm-sig-and-year-ahead-cidoccrm-development#commentsFactMiners Jim Awarded Emerging Professional Scholarship to Attend #MCN2014
http://www.factminers.org/MCN2014/scholarship
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><figure class="clearfix field-item even"><a href="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/images/MCN2014_sm_logo.png"><img typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-large" src="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/MCN2014_sm_logo.png?itok=jmEsL9cQ" width="315" height="278" alt="" /></a></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/mcn2014" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">#MCN2014</a></li><li class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/museum-informatics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Museum Informatics</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>I am beyond happy to announce that I have been awarded an <strong>Emerging Professional Scholarship</strong> to significantly support our attending and presenting at the prestigious <strong><a href="http://eventshowcase.ungerboeck.com/mcn/public/events/mcn2014/app/event.html">Museum Computer Network 2014 (#MCN2014)</a></strong> annual conference next month in Dallas, Texas. While it is an honor to be recognized (at my age and as an unaffiliated Citizen Scientist/Historian) with this award, it is truly the financial impact of the award that mean so much to me and FactMiners "co-host" (my soulmate/wife) Timlynn Babitsky.</p>
<p>Timlynn and I will be attending and presenting on behalf of FactMiners.org and The Softalk Apple Project, our First Of A Kind "sandbox" for development of the FactMiners' cognitive computing-based social game platform for Libraries, Archives, and Museums (LAMs). You will find our <a href="/MCN2014">proposals for our 30-minute presentation and demo here</a>. Our demo will be on Demo Day, Friday, November 21st, and our presentation will be one of three in the panel <em><a href="http://eventshowcase.ungerboeck.com/mcn/public/events/mcn2014/app/event.html#&ui4nvh!eyJuYXYiOiJhcHAuZXZlbnQudmlld1Nlc3Npb25EZXRhaWxzIizEh3JnxKM6WyJmOGMyMzVhMS04MDk2LTQ1YzctYmYyOS03NGZhNTAxMTY4MjciXX0=!ui4nvh">"Shoestrings, Subgraphs, and Sharing: New Design Paradigms for Museums"</a></em> scheduled for Saturday, November 22nd.</p>
<p>Timlynn has already signed up to be a Conference Volunteer. The Emerging Professional Scholarship is quite generous and significantly appreciated:</p>
<ul><li> one full conference registration
</li>
<li> complimentary attendance at ANY of the the pre-conference workshops (these are GREAT and not cheap)
</li>
<li> a $400 travel/food stipend!
</li>
<li> complimentary hotel room in the conference hotel
</li>
<li> complimentary 1-year Emerging Professional membership in the Museum Computer Network! :-)
</li>
<li> plus... a Cocktail Meet & Greet for Scholarship Recipients (great networking)
</li>
</ul><p>So, yes, we are super-stoked. As an independent, unaffiliated Citizen Science project, this kind of support means everything to us. THANK YOU MCN FOLKS! :D :D We will see y'all in Dallas!!!</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 23:17:42 +0000Jim Salmons38 at http://www.factminers.orghttp://www.factminers.org/MCN2014/scholarship#commentsFactMiners - ICOM CIDOC-CRM into Neo4j via Py2Neo at GitHub
http://www.factminers.org/content/factminers-icom-cidoc-crm-neo4j-py2neo-github
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><figure class="clearfix field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/FactMiners_cidocCRM_step1.png?itok=EMoev9j-"><a href="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/images/FactMiners_cidocCRM_step1.png"><img typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-large" src="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/FactMiners_cidocCRM_step1.png?itok=EMoev9j-" width="480" height="422" alt="" /></a></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/museum-informatics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Museum Informatics</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/metamodeling" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Metamodeling</a></li><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/design" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Design</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/github" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">GitHub</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The FactMiners social-game developers' community will use the ISO-standard Conceptual Reference Model of the international museum community for managing the underlying relationship between digital cultural heritage collection management and hosting a FactMiners Fact Cloud. The best way to make it easy for museums and archives to participate in the FactMiners community, is to provide a <strong>state-of-the-art flexible, extensible digital cultural heritage collection management platform</strong>.</p>
<p>This goal is the basis of our collaboration with the brilliant designer-developers of <a href="http://www.Structr.org">www.Structr.org</a>, the next-generation Content Management System (a stealth understatement if ever there was one! :-)) built on the Neo4j graph database.</p>
<p>For step one of <a href="http://goo.gl/Ji5Nza">getting the CRM into Neo4j</a>, this is literally my first Python program. Judge only that it worked well enough to parse the ICOM CIDOC CRM (Conceptual Reference Model) text document and get it into Neo4j where this will serve as a reference model for FactMiners' metamodel construction.</p>
<p>The 0.1 version parses the Class Declarations section of the official CIDOC CRM document. This means there is full Class node info but limited Property node info. The next step will address this by parsing the Property Declarations section and 'node-ifying' them in the style of a FactMiners embedded metamodel subgraph.</p>
<p>Thankfully, the Python program and the text version of the source document do not have to be fooled with as I've zipped up the resulting Neo4j database for your pleasure. You can find these files in the <a href="http://goo.gl/5fRCrT">FactMiners GitHub Repository </a>.</p>
</div></div></div>Sat, 29 Mar 2014 06:58:28 +0000Jim Salmons11 at http://www.factminers.orghttp://www.factminers.org/content/factminers-icom-cidoc-crm-neo4j-py2neo-github#commentsFactMiners Fact Clouds to be CIDOC-CRM Compliant
http://www.factminers.org/content/factminers-fact-clouds-be-cidoc-crm-compliant
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><figure class="clearfix field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/CRM_header_L.gif?itok=ZYL5Vtpv"><a href="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/images/CRM_header_L.gif"><img typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-large" src="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/CRM_header_L.gif?itok=ZYL5Vtpv" width="178" height="74" alt="" /></a></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/cidoccrm" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">#cidocCRM</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/news" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News</a></li><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/museum-informatics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Museum Informatics</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/metamodeling" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Metamodeling</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><strong>FactMiners.org </strong> is pleased to announce adoption of the <a href="http://www.cidoc-crm.org/comprehensive_intro.html">Conceptual Reference Model (CRM)</a> of the <a href="http://network.icom.museum/cidoc/">International Committee for Documentation (CIDOC)</a> of the <a href="http://icom.museum/">International Council of Museums (ICOM)</a>. The CIDOC-CRM is an <em>'ontology'</em> for cultural heritage information, in other words it describes in a <strong>formal language</strong> the <strong>concepts</strong> and <strong>relations</strong> relevant to the <strong>documentation of cultural heritage</strong>. This ISO standard will be used as the reference model for the development of the <strong>FactMiners Fact Cloud</strong> metamodel that will logically organize the <em>'facts'</em> to be <em>'mined'</em> out of our initial project — the digital archive of <strong>Softalk magazine</strong> — respecting both the elements of its <em>editorial content</em> and the <em>complex document structure</em> of a magazine.</p>
<!--break--><p>
It is truly exciting to be able to 'stand on the shoulders of giants' with respect to formalizing the candidate elements and overall logical organization of the facts that we will be capturing in the FactMiners Fact Cloud describing the content of Softalk magazine. <strong>This reference standard will dramatically accelerate our design and implementation of the FactMiners Fact Cloud Wizard component within the core FactMiners Open Source development platform.</strong></p>
<p>A relatively small group of dedicated data scientists and museum informatics professionals have spent nearly twenty years working out an essential set of elements and their logical organization. <strong>This means we can get right to work developing our FactMiners Fact Cloud companion of the Softalk archive as a domain-specific extension of the CIDOC-CRM reference model.</strong> Doing this, we guarantee Semantic Web and OpenData accessibility which is essential to our project mission.</p>
<p>Our growing collaboration with the <a href="http://www.Structr.org">www.Structr.org</a> team will benefit greatly from this reference model as we work together to envision and build the FactMiners platform on the <a href="http://www.neo4j.org">Neo4j</a>-powered <strong>Structr CMS/web-services platform</strong>. Our first efforts will focus on the FactMiners Fact Cloud Wizard described in <a href="http://gist.neo4j.org/?7817558">Part 2 of this Neo4j GraphGist</a>. </p>
</div></div></div>Sun, 23 Feb 2014 01:32:47 +0000Jim Salmons2 at http://www.factminers.orghttp://www.factminers.org/content/factminers-fact-clouds-be-cidoc-crm-compliant#commentsFactMiners: More or Less Folksonomy?
http://www.factminers.org/content/factminers-more-or-less-folksonomy
<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><figure class="clearfix field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/FactMiners_bigpicture.png?itok=_lVzTjE-"><a href="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/images/FactMiners_bigpicture.png"><img typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-large" src="http://www.factminers.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/FactMiners_bigpicture.png?itok=_lVzTjE-" width="480" height="406" alt="" /></a></figure></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><ul class="field-items"><li class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/museum-informatics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Museum Informatics</a></li><li class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/openculture" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">OpenCulture</a></li></ul></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-rss view-mode-rss"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Our community mission is to develop the <em>"FactMiners ecosystem."</em> This ecosystem once realized will consist of:</p>
<ul><li><strong>FactMiners Players</strong> – young and old, thinker-players all, they connect to each other and Fact Cloud host museums and archives by way of the <em>multi-platform <strong>FactMiners</strong> social-game app</em>
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.FactMiners.com">FactMiners.com</a></strong> – the web service providing gamification, player community, and repository workflow infrastructure
</li>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.FactMiners.org">FactMiners.org</a></strong> – (this site) the Open Source developer community (here) where we will create and evolve the FactMiners game app, server-based web services, and repository APIs, etc.
</li>
<li><strong>Fact Cloud repositories</strong> – the first being the Fact Cloud to be developed and hosted by <a href="http://www.SoftalkApple.com">The Softalk Apple Project</a>
</li>
</ul><p>Our goal is to create a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsource">crowdsource</a>-powered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_gaming">social gaming</a> community that "comes to play" in museum and archive on-line repositories with the intensity of the multitudes who play <em>Candy Crush</em> or <em>Words With Friends</em>. And by playing FactMiners, this rabid game-playing community will produce two results:</p>
<ul><li>Players will spend time exploratory-learning about whatever is the content of a host collection, and
</li>
<li>The host museum or archive will get a <strong>Fact Cloud data repository</strong> [1] that will become increasingly valuable as an educational and research resource.
</li>
</ul><p>In short, both the <strong>means</strong> – <em>FactMiner exploratory-learning game-playing</em> – and the <strong>ends</strong> – <em>the "by-product" generation of the host collection's Fact Cloud</em> – have value in their own right.</p>
<p>[1] See <em><a href="/about_graphs_and_factmining">A Wee Bit about Graph DBs and Fact Mining</a></em> </p>
<h2>Isn't FactMiners just Folksonomy (Social Tagging) in a Game Wrapper?</h2>
<blockquote><p>First, let me admit that IANAMIP – I Am Not A Museum Informatics Professional – so forgive me for what I don't know. My purpose with this article is to engage the interest of any reader who may be a member of the <strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_informatics">museum informatics</a></strong> community, not to alienate you by presuming to speak with any authority or direct experience. I also want to introduce our informal <strong>'Friends of Softalk'</strong> community to what is admittedly an esoteric aspect of our project. Regardless of what motivates your reading, I welcome all feedback and comments. And on behalf of our project, we welcome the active interest of, and potential collaboration with, members of the museum informatics community.</p></blockquote>
<p>The closest thing to <strong>FactMiners</strong> that I know about within the museum informatics community – please note I have an admittedly limited knowledge in this regard and welcome feedback to broaden my perspective – is the brilliant work being done on <strong>folksonomy</strong> which Wikipedia summarizes as:</p>
<div class="image-left"><img src="/sites/default/files/images/Steve_folksonomy.png" width="206" height="293" alt="Steve_folksonomy.png" /></div>
<blockquote><p>"A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content; this practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging." (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy</a>)</p></blockquote>
<p>The folksonomy/social-tagging community has produced impressive results through such collaborations as the <a href="http://www.steve.museum/">steve project</a> which now includes 21 institutions (museums and archives) whose over eight thousand community members have tagged nearly 100,000 objects with over half a million terms. Another great example is the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx6dT7G8vTM">Virtual Museum of the Pacific</a>, a creative collaboration of the Australia Museum and Wollongong University researchers. </p>
<div class="image-right">
<iframe width="330" height="186" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/yx6dT7G8vTM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>
<p>This is truly impressive work. But <strong>I believe Fact-Mining, while related and complementary, is qualitatively different than social-tagging</strong>. This said, we certainly know that we will learn from the folksonomy folks' experience and welcome the opportunity to collaborate with those working in this domain.</p>
<h2>Beyond Folksonomy for Serial Magazines</h2>
<p>Many museum and archive collections are well served by folksonomy's focus on classification coupled with collecting community members' insights, stories, and fragile memories captured for posterity.</p>
<p>However, while relevant at one level of artifact description, <strong>property-based classification may be insufficient for the subset of collections that include such artifacts as serial magazines and newspapers</strong>. While the physical artifact can be richly described through attribute categorization, these physical item properties do not help us if we want to identify and explore the <em>information content</em> expressed in the text and graphics of a magazine or newspaper.</p>
<p>Serial magazines – especially those like <strong>Softalk</strong> with a very specific editorial focus – are a unique resource. Taken collectively throughout a publication's run, serial magazines produce a sequence of "time capsule snapshots" of what's going within the domain of the publication's editorial focus.</p>
<p>"<strong>Fact mining" (by FactMiners) is intended to be a fun and educational way to unlock the "facts" contained in these collections</strong> such as magazines and newspapers. (As an aside, don't take "fact" too literally. <em>Assertion</em> is a more accurate term as a "fact," in our sense, need only be verifiable as having been stated/asserted in the source document.)</p>
<p><strong>The goal of creating a "Fact Cloud" is to find, capture, and verify (that is, to "mine") the information content <ins>from its source document human-readable format</ins> into a <ins>machine-queriable data format</ins>.</strong></p>
<h2>Magazines as a Rich Data Source</h2>
<div class="image-right"><img src="/sites/default/files/images/Softalk_collage_4_factcloud_aboutpg.png" width="284" height="301" alt="Softalk_collage_4_factcloud_aboutpg.png" /></div>
<p>A magazine – while a fun and lively source of information and entertainment if all we want to do is read it – is actually a quite complex document when we take into account both its <em>content information model</em> and its <em>document structure</em>.</p>
<p>On the content modeling side of things, a magazine like Softalk is about <strong>People</strong>, <strong>Companies</strong>, <strong>Hardware</strong> (Products), <strong>Software</strong> (Products), <strong>User/Consumer Stories</strong>, <strong>Market Information</strong>, <strong>Product Reviews</strong>, <strong>Sales Performance</strong> (e.g. Softalk Bestseller Lists), etc. </p>
<p>These types of "Things" may be the subject of "facts" that either connect <strong>Thing-RELATED_TO->Thing</strong> or <strong>Thing->HAS_ATTRIBUTE->Property</strong>, etc. Such relatively simple <strong>Thing->RELATIONSHIP->Thing</strong> expressions can be conditionally combined into semantically rich data/information models. (This topic is beyond the scope of this article. For a bit more see this short piece <a href="/about_graphs_and_factmining">about graph databases and FactMiners</a>.)</p>
<p>A magazine has an additional layer of information structure; <strong>Feature Stories</strong>, <strong>Columns</strong>, <strong>Editorials</strong>, <strong>Advertisements</strong>, <strong>Polls</strong>, <strong>Reader Contests</strong>, <strong>Bestseller Lists</strong>, <strong>Letters to the Editor</strong>, etc. The magazine's structural nature complicates the scanning and OCR (optical character recognition) requirements when putting a magazine collection on-line. <strong>In order to "fact mine" a magazine, we have to capture and organize our facts respecting the magazine's document structure.</strong> It is important, for example, to know which fact assertions are derived from advertising copy as opposed to the same assertion coming from an article, featured column, or product review.</p>
<p><strong>When both the content information and magazine structural aspects are captured in the Fact Cloud of a serial magazine, we get a very interesting time-series dataset that can be used to "see" social and market dynamics which cannot be gleaned by simple piecemeal reading of preserved issues in these on-line collections.</strong></p>
<h2>The Fact Cloud as Education and Research Resource</h2>
<p>Once an army of FactMiners' game-players "consume" a museum or archive host's source repository and leave the by-product of the Fact Cloud representation of the collection's source material, <strong>the host institution will have a qualitatively different and important new resource for both education and research</strong>.</p>
<p>Given a set of analytic query tools for aggregation and visualization – as will be part of the mission of FactMiners.org, the Open Source developer community supporting the FactMiners ecosystem – it is easy to imagine how <strong>this resource would enhance casual visitors' exploratory learning experiences</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>But perhaps the greatest value will come from the increased efficiency that a Fact Cloud can provide to serious researchers.</strong> Given access and tools to use a sufficiently comprehensive Fact Cloud, prospective researchers may be able to significantly reduce or even eliminate the need for ad hoc ("one-off") data gathering and scoring tasks within a research project. Indeed, a Fact Cloud may very well <strong>enable researchers to imagine and then pursue answers to questions that they might not have even asked before availability of a Fact Cloud companion to a source collection</strong>, especially when faced with limited research funding.</p>
<p>I could go on speculating about the prospective value of FactMiners' Fact Clouds as educational and research resources, but in closing I want to turn to an underlying question...<a name="johnhenry" id="johnhenry"></a></p>
<h2>Won't FactMiners Fail Like John Henry?</h2>
<div class="image-right"><img src="/sites/default/files/images/32_cent_stap_john_henry.jpg" width="176" height="277" alt="32_cent_stap_john_henry.jpg" /></div>
<p>One might suppose that my comparison of FactMiners with folksonomy begs the question of whether a crowdsource-powered social gaming approach to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_mining">text mining</a> (the more general domain of FactMiners, AKA <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_mining#Text_mining_and_text_analytics">text analytics</a>) can realistically compete with the sophisticated technologies for algorithmic knowledge graph and ontology generation, concept and entity discovery, etc. found in the emerging market for enterprise-based semantic web solutions offered by such players as <a href="http://digirati.co.uk/">Digirati</a>, <a href="http://www.bitext.com/">Bitext</a>, and <a href="http://www.semantic-web.at/">The Semantic Web Company</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, isn't FactMiners' fact mining doomed to the same fate as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_(folklore)">John Henry</a> who pitted his prowess as a "steel-drivin' man" against the steam-powered hammer of industrial mechanization?</p>
<p>In answer to this important question I believe my sentiments would align more closely with those in the museum informatics community rather than the players in these enterprise markets. That is, while I see the importance and need for computational/machine solutions to text mining for domains such as health care records management and research, social media marketing, recommendation-based publishing, and government services (among others), we cannot lose sight of one of the fundamental goals of organizations that preserve and make available on-line collections and archives such as The Softalk Apple Project. And that is, <strong>our mission is driven by a commitment to encourage access to our collections within an exploratory learning environment; to be the spark that ignites new interests and understanding</strong>.</p>
<p>We simply cannot outsource to machine algorithms the exercise of our minds and the value of learning from our past. So on one level, the question of whether we could do FactMiners "better, faster, cheaper" with emerging text mining and text analytic technologies is moot. But let's be clear. This is not a distinct either/or proposition. </p>
<p>There is plenty of room for judiciously incorporating emerging relevant technologies into the FactMiners ecosystem. The cutting edge will have to be "Does this addition make playing FactMiners more fun? Does this make it a better game?" And there is nothing about fun that can't incorporate increased efficiency or ease of guided user interaction.</p>
<p>For example, the <a href="http://www.FactMiners.org">www.FactMiners.org</a> developer community mission will include an initiative to promote development of "machine-assisted" FactMiners' fact mining. We foresee this Open Source community <strong>sponsoring academic and independent developer contests</strong> to contribute "smart plug-ins" to the mix of task-engine workflow resources available to FactMiners' players. </p>
<p>We expect to see "machine-assists" for efficient fact discovery, composition, and verification, but their use will not be mandatory nor will they encourage "machine cheating" within the scoring and achievement aspects of the social game. <strong>There will be gamification dynamics/constraints in place to ensure that "human only" FactMiners players do not compete at a disadvantage with "machine-assisted" FactMiners.</strong> </p>
<p>To support Fact Cloud hosts' visitor engagement goals, the Fact Cloud configuration profile will include a setting in the API to allow or disallow players' user of "machine-assisted" workflow plug-ins when contributing to the organization's Fact Cloud. And <strong>we plan to host John-Henry-like "Human vs. Machine-assisted" friendly team tournaments as well as maintain separate leader-boards and achievements for Manual and Machine-assisted play.</strong></p>
<p>I could go on in speculation about what will be in or out in terms of FactMiners fact mining, but this is already an overly long piece by web-reading standards. (Thank you for getting here, BTW.) My hope is that I have said enough, and said it clearly enough, to accomplish our original goal of writing this piece. And that is...</p>
<p><strong>We welcome members of the Museum Informatics community </strong>to help us in our mission to preserve, explore, and extend the legacy of Softalk magazine as the data source for FactMiners first Fact Cloud. In doing so you will <strong>help us contribute the FactMiners ecosystem to the resources available to museums and archives hosting on-line collections</strong>.</p>
<div class="image-left"><em>Jim Salmons<br />The Softalk Apple Project<br />Cedar Rapids, Iowa USA</em></div>
</div></div></div>Tue, 08 Oct 2013 01:09:42 +0000Jim Salmons10 at http://www.factminers.orghttp://www.factminers.org/content/factminers-more-or-less-folksonomy#comments
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