In preparation for future Fourth Portal Innovation Showcases, we are developing a linked data app to help visitors, speakers, volunteers, and crew easily access the information they need throughout the day.
Innovation Showcase 2024
Enhancing Innovation Showcases with Linked Data
Using data and spreadsheets from the 2024 Innovation Showcase, we are working on a linked data app. The tool will be designed to connect event details seamlessly in real time.
The Goal
We are building a linked data app that brings together everything happening at an Innovation Showcase — sessions, locations, speakers, and more — so everyone can navigate the event effortlessly. Whether a visitor is searching for a specific talk, a crew member looking to track down a speaker, or a volunteer deciding the best time to grab a coffee, this system will help everyone make the most of the day.
How Will It Work?
Right now, much of the information from the 2024 event exists in separate spreadsheets and lists; venue details, speaker schedules, volunteer rosters, and exhibitor contacts. By integrating all of this information into an accessible format, the linked data app will be able to swiftly provide answers to questions such as:
Who’s speaking about AI and law today?
Which venues are running hands-on workshops?
Where is the nearest talk on sustainability happening?
Who should I contact if I need help setting up my demonstration?
For example, at our November 2024 Innovation Showcase in Gravesend, we had St. George’s Church hosting discussions on AI, law and gaming, while The Grand featured sessions on machine learning poetry and VFX.
Volunteers played a vital role, guiding attendees and ensuring they made the most of the event; feedback highlighted struggles in accessing real-time information. With the linked data app, all of these details can be at everyone's fingertips, making the event easier to navigate and more accessible.
Why Does This Matter?
The Innovation Showcase was a vibrant, fast-moving event packed with information and activity. Such events can be overwhelming when attempting to keep track of everything. Our upcoming approach aims to solve these challenges by:
Providing seamless navigation – Instantly locate sessions, speakers, and venues.
Quickly accessing speaker information – Find out where and when a speaker is presenting.
Keeping everyone informed – Volunteers, crew, and attendees will receive real-time updates on any changes.
Creating a unified resource – Instead of searching through scattered notes, all event details will be accessible in one place.
Beyond event day, linked data can help to make Innovation Showcase information available on the Web after the festival has ended and allow connections to be traced between different festivals and relevant resources online.
Developing a User-Friendly System App
We are currently in the early stages of converting raw spreadsheets into a structured, user-friendly system that works in real time. This means organising a large amount of information, including extracting the spreadsheet data of all festival speakers, linking venues to key contacts, and mapping out event schedules.
If you wish to understand more about the engineering approach, continue reading. Alternatively, we will share updates as we develop this new tool, helping to make future Fourth Portal Innovation Showcases and other events more accessible and connected.
Engineering Perspective
Graham, our lead engineer and a specialist in linked data, first needs to structure the 2024 event’s spreadsheet data into a format suited for linked data applications.
This process is crucial because linked data relies on well-defined relationships between different types of information, ensuring that event details are interconnected and easily retrievable. It also allows for new questions to be asked that may not have been considered at the outset, such as linking festival data with external knowledge sources like Wikidata.
At present, much of the information; such as speaker schedules, venue locations, and volunteer assignments, exists in isolated spreadsheets. Each sheet contains valuable data, but without a structured approach, it remains fragmented. To make this data useful, it needs to be converted into a standardised format that allows relationships to be establishedbetween different entities.
Designing the Structured Data Format
The structured data format is built around the description of people, places, and events (activities). It has been designed and prototyped using Annalist, a linked data notebook tool written by Graham (GitHub repository).
Each described entity is represented by a single file in JSON-LD format, which is a way of representing RDF, or linked data, on the Web. The underlying data structure elements use existing standards (W3C RDF Schema, CIDOC CRM, W3C PROV) combined with some local elements that capture specifics of festival data not fully represented in those existing standards. Much of this data structure was developed as part of the FAST digital music project and was previously used to document the history of the Carolan Guitar.
Why Structure the Data?
Structuring the data properly means that instead of a simple list of speakers and locations, we can create a dynamic, searchable knowledge graph that links:
Speakers to their talks, locations, and co-presenters.
Venues mapped to their scheduled events and key contacts.
Volunteers connected to their assigned roles and locations.
This structured approach eliminates duplication, reduces errors, and ensures that information is connected in a way that makes sense to people and machines. Once structured, the data can be accessed through a linked data finder tool, allowing attendees, organisers, and crew to retrieve the information required instantly.
How ChatGPT Assists in Structuring the Data
To streamline this process, Graham has been using ChatGPT to assist with transforming raw spreadsheets into a machine-readable linked data format. ChatGPT can recognise some patterns in the spreadsheet data and apply transformations to convert them into the required linked data format.
For instance, ChatGPT has been used to:
Extract names, roles, and locations from event schedules and format them into structured lists.
Generate locally unique identifiers (slugs) for each speaker, venue, and volunteer, which are incorporated into URLs by Annalist to maintain consistency.
Convert tabular data into JSON-LD files, a format commonly used for linked data applications.
Assist in merging and deduplicating information that appears across multiple spreadsheets.
Once the data is fully structured, it can be accessed by linked data applications, making future Fourth Portal Innovation Showcases and other events more navigable, connected, and interactive.
Looking Ahead
The work behind the scenes on this linked data app is part of a broader effort to improve how people experience Innovation Showcases and other areas of the Fourth Portal. By ensuring that information is easily accessible, well-organised, and intelligently connected, we are setting a fresh approach to how event data can be managed.
The introduction of ChatGPT into the structuring process means that experimentation and innovation can happen faster than would otherwise be possible. As development continues, we will share further insights into how this system is progressing and the impact it will have on future events.
One of the goals for this work is to provide templates and/or applications that capture the data more consistently, automating the process of transforming data for publication on the Web, speedily and with greater accuracy.
For now, we are focused on refining this tool and ensuring it meets the needs of visitors, speakers, and crew alike.
Stay Up To Date
If you are interested in the technical aspects, we will be sharing further details as we progress. For everyone else, stay tuned as we continue expanding Fourth Portal, making it more accessible and better connected than ever before.
Links
Innovation Showcase Event Documentation: https://www.fourthportal.com/event-documentation/innovation-showcase
Innovation Showcase Upcoming Events: https://www.fourthportal.com/gravesend-showcase-2024
Comments