Wikidata Hackathon - Festival of Creative Learning

Wikidata and SPARQL Query Workshop.

Wikidata – “the source for open structured data on the web and for facts within Wikipedia.” (Wallis, 2014)

Part 1: Introduction to Wikidata (12:30 to 2pm)

The first session will focus on how to add data to Wikidata so this will include a short intro to what Wikidata is before looking at how individual items of data can be added to and, importantly, backed up with references as part of a data hackathon. The event will very much focus on practical work.

Wikidata is a free and open data repository of the world’s knowledge that anyone can read & edit. Wikidata’s linked database acts as central storage for the structured data of its Wikimedia sister projects. It differs from Wikipedia in that it is completely language independent and its structured data can be read and edited by both humans and machines alike. Volunteers from all around the world add and structure data to describe our complex reality, based on sources, just as Wikipedia. Discover how Wikidata works, how you can improve and reuse the data, how the community works and which tools they use.

Datasets to hack:

• Women in Medicine data hack.
• The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft data hack.
• Nautical themed data hack.

Part 2: Wikidata Query Service workshop (2:30pm to 4:30pm)

The second session will continue the data hack but also look at how the machine-readable data in Wikidata can be consumed, queried and visualised; whether it’s Voltaire’s works, the collections of the National Library of Wales, an analysis of MPs’ occupations or the 3 million linked citations visualised using the new Scholia tool. This session will show through a practical workshop how SPARQL queries can be built up simply and easily to analyse datasets. Build maps, graphs, and other data visualisations based on open knowledge.

Programme

12:30pm to 1:15pm: Introduction to Wikidata

1:15pm to 2pm: Data Hack part 1

2pm to 2:30pm: Refreshments

2:30pm - 3:15pm: Introduction to Visualising the data in Wikidata

3:15pm - 4:15pm: Data Hack part 2

4:15pm - 4:30pm: Visualising the newly added data.

4:30pm: Close.

This event may be photographed and/or recorded for promotional or recruitment materials for the University and University approved third parties. For further information please contact the organiser.

Why you should attend:

In this session we will explain why Wikidata is so special, why its users are so excited by the possibilities it offers, why it may overtake Wikipedia in years to come as the project to watch and how it is quietly on course to change the world.

Who should attend?

Absolutely anyone can use Wikidata for something, so people of all disciplines and walks of life are encouraged to attend this session. Basic knowledge of using the internet will be needed to get involved in the practical activity, but there are no other pre-requisites.

Anyone interested in open knowledge, open data, academic research, application development or data visualisation should come away buzzing with exciting new ideas!

NB: The room does not have desktop computers so please bring a laptop with you. Email ewan.mcandrew@ed.ac.uk at keast 24 hours in advance if you would like to borrow one for the session.

Please also create a Wikidata account ahead of the event. If you have a Wikipedia account you can use the same login details.

For further reading on Wikidata please check out:

• http://lab.cccb.org/en/wikidata-the-new-rosetta-stone/
• http://www.oxfordaspiremuseums.org/blog/wikidata