schema.org, an ontology for discovery on the web
DESCRIPTION
Quick overview of schema.org presented at UK Ontology Network meeting, Edinburgh 11 Apr 2013.TRANSCRIPT
schema.org, an ontology for discovery on the web
Phil Barker, Heriot-Watt University
http://people.pjjk.net/phil@philbarker
Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards
Supporting innovation and interoperability in educational technologyhttp://jisc.cetis.ac.uk
Learning Resource Metadata Initiative
Make it easier to find educational resources by developing a common metadata framework (within schema.org) to describe their educational characteristics
http://www.lrmi.net
Schema.org is a joint effort, in the spirit of sitemaps.org, to improve the web by creating a structured data markup schema supported by major search engines. On-page markup helps search engines understand the information on web pages and provide richer search results. A shared markup vocabulary makes easier for webmasters to decide on a markup schema and get the maximum benefit for their efforts. Search engines want to make it easier for people to find relevant information on the web. Markup can also enable new tools and applications that make use of the structure.
Schema.org FAQ http://schema.org/docs/faq.html (June 2011)
schema.org
Screenshot of MIT OCW page licence CC:BY-NC-SAhttp://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-03sc-differential-equations-fall-2011/
Adapted screenshot of MIT OCW page licence CC:BY-NC-SAhttp://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-03sc-differential-equations-fall-2011/
Resource Title
Creators
Description
Resource Type
Educational level
URIPublisher
SubjectKeywords
GoalsPre-requisites
schema.org = ontology + syntax
Hierarchy of types, each with own properties
Microdata or RDFa in HTML
<h3>Instructor(s)</h3><p itemprop="author">Prof. Arthur Mattuck</p><p itemprop="author">Prof. Haynes Miller</p><p itemprop="author">Dr. Jeremy Orloff</p><p itemprop="author">Dr. John Lewis</p>
<h3>Level</h3><p itemprop="typicalAgeRange"
content="18-21">Undergraduate</p>
schema.org properties for Thing
ThingadditionalType (a URL)description (text)image (a URL)name (text)url (a URL)
(Expected type for property)
(some) schema.org properties
Creative Workabout (a schema.org Thing)author (a schema.org Person or Organization)copyrightHolder (a schema.org Person or Organization)dateCreated (a Date)publisher (a schema.org Organization)and many, many more....
Plus, from ThingadditionalType, description, image, name, url
Emphasis on simplicity and search
<p itemprop="author">Prof. Arthur Mattuck</p>
Should be<p itemprop="author" itemscope
itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span itemprop="honorificPrefix">Prof.</span> <span itemprop="givenname">Arthur</span> <span itemprop="familyname">Mattuck</span>
</p>
But even the former helps Google
Other observations
The ontology is growing (discussion at [email protected])
Being implemented by web sitesSee http://webdatacommons.org/vocabulary-usage-analysis/
Implementation by Google? Not much obvious use yet Difficult to know what Google does in background Can use to build “niche” searches via Google CSE
Conclusion
Consider using schema.org to help build more sophisticated search services by disambiguating information exposed in web pages.
Licence and attribution
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence.
To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA.
By Phil Barker <[email protected]>, JISC CETIS <http://jisc.cetis.ac.uk>