Publishing, exploring, and analyzing cultural heritage linked data

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School of Science | Doctoral thesis (article-based) | Defence date: 2025-11-21
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Date

2025

Department

Tietotekniikan laitos
Department of Computer Science

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

81 + app. 142

Series

Aalto University publication series Doctoral Theses, 225/2025

Abstract

Memory organizations produce various kinds of Cultural Heritage (CH) data that is of great importance for research and society in general, but there are challenges in making the data available to the general public and humanities researchers. The data often exists in data silos, sometimes even just as tabular files on computers. This thesis aims to address these issues by answering questions concerning how CH data can be published in interoperable form for semantic applications, what kinds of functions such applications can have, and how the creation of such CH web applications can be supported. The hypotheses selected in this thesis are that Linked Data (LD) can offer a practical way of publishing CH data and creating semantic applications; that faceted search, combined with visualizations for data analysis, offers both researchers and the general public a useful way to explore data; that CH web applications can be created on top of SPARQL endpoints; and that their creation can be supported with a software framework created for that purpose. The research questions and hypotheses were tested by creating new knowledge graphs, web applications, and methods to open CH as LD and explore it using faceted search. The example cases used in this thesis to test the research questions and hypotheses include death records from the Finnish Civil War, records of archaeological finds made by the public, and biographies of prominent individuals from Finland and various other European countries. The existing legacy CH datasets were converted to LD and enriched in cooperation with experts from heritage institutions. The work in this thesis demonstrates that LD can be a practical way to open CH data, that faceted search applications can be built on top of SPARQL endpoints, and that faceted search combined with visualizations is a useful tool for opening CH data to be utilized by both researchers and the general public. The creation of CH applications requires high-quality data, but such applications can also support improving data quality. The research in this thesis also extends the concept of faceted search by introducing a novel method for applying faceted search to relations between entities such as persons and places in addition to the entities themselves.

Muistiorganisaatiot tuottavat erilaista kulttuuriperintöön (KP) liittyvää dataa, jolla on suuri merkitys tutkimukselle ja yhteiskunnalle. Datan avaamisessa yleisöä ja tutkijoita varten on kuitenkin esteitä. Data sijaitsee usein “datasiiloissa”, esimerkiksi taulukkotiedostoina tutkijoiden tietokoneilla. Tämä väitöskirja pyrkii parantamaan tilannetta vastaamalla kysymyksiin siitä, miten KP-dataa voidaan julkaista yhteentoimivassa muodossa semanttisille sovelluksille, millaisia ominaisuuksia sellaisilla sovelluksilla voi olla ja miten sellaisten sovellusten luomista voi helpottaa. Tähän työhön on valittu seuraavat hypoteesit: linkitetty data (LD) voi tarjota käytännöllisen tavan julkaista KP-dataa ja luoda semanttisia sovelluksia; fasettihaku, yhdistettynä data-analyysejä mahdollistaviin visualisaatioihin, tarjoaa tutkijoille ja suurelle yleisölle hyödyllisen tavan tutkia dataa; web-sovelluksia voidaan luoda SPARQL-päätepisteiden varaan ja sovellusten luomista voi helpottaa hyödyntämällä valmista sovelluskehystä. Tutkimuskysymyksiä ja hypoteeseja testattiin luomalla uusia tietämysgraafeja, web-sovelluksia ja metodeja KP-datan avaamiseen ja datan tutkimiseen. Esimerkkitapauksina tässä työssä käytettiin Suomen sisällissodan uhrien tilastoja, arkeologisia kansalaislöytöjä sekä merkittävien henkilöiden elämäkertoja. Esimerkkitapauksissa olemassa olevat tietokannat muunnettiin linkitetyksi dataksi ja niitä rikastettiin yhteistyössä KP-asiantuntijoiden kanssa. Tämä väitöskirja osoittaa, että LD voi olla käytännöllinen tapa avata kulttuuriperintödataa, että fasettihaku on hyödyllinen työkalu kulttuuriperintödatan avaamisessa ja että sovelluksia voidaan luoda SPARQL-päätepisteiden varaan. KP-sovellusten luominen edellyttää laadukasta dataa, mutta tällaiset sovellukset voivat myös auttaa datan laadun parantamisessa. Tutkimus laajentaa lisäksi fasettihaun käsitettä tietämysgraafien solmujen, kuten henkilöiden ja paikkojen, välisten yhteyksien hakemiseen.

Description

Supervising professor

Hyvönen, Eero, Prof., Aalto University, Department of Computer Science, Finland & University of Helsinki, Finland

Thesis advisor

Tuominen, Jouni, Dr., University of Helsinki & Aalto University, Department of Computer Science, Finland
Oksanen, Eljas, Dr., Title of Docent, University of Helsinki, Finland & University of Reading, UK

Keywords

linked data, cultural heritage, digital humanities, archaeology, war history, linkitetty data, kulttuuriperintö, digitaaliset ihmistieteet, arkeologia, sotahistoria

Other note

Parts

  • [Publication 1]: Eero Hyvönen and Heikki Rantala. Knowledge-Based Relational Search in Cultural Heritage Linked Data. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 36, Issue Supplement 2, Pages 155–164, Oxford University Press, online https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqab042, October 2021.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202202161911
    DOI: 10.1093/llc/fqab042 View at publisher
  • [Publication 2]: Heikki Rantala, Ilkka Jokipii, Esko Ikkala and Eero Hyvönen. WarVictim- Sampo 1914–1922: a National War Memorial on the Semantic Web for Digital Humanities Research and Applications. ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage (JOCCH), Volume 15, issue 1, pages 1–18, Association for Computing Machinery, January 2022.
    DOI: 10.1145/3477606 View at publisher
  • [Publication 3]: Esko Ikkala, Eero Hyvönen, Heikki Rantala and Mikko Koho. Sampo-UI: A Full Stack JavaScript Framework for Developing Semantic Portal User Interfaces. Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability, Volume13, Issue 1, Pages 69–84, IOS Press, January 2022.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-2021120810645
    DOI: 10.3233/SW-210428 View at publisher
  • [Publication 4]: Heikki Rantala, Esko Ikkala, Ville Rohiola, Mikko Koho, Jouni Tuominen, Eljas Oksanen, Anna Wessman and Eero Hyvönen. FindSampo: A Linked Data Based Portal and Data Service for Analyzing and Disseminating Archaeological Object Finds. In The Semantic Web: 19th International Conference, ESWC 2022, May 29–June 2, 2022, Proceedings, Hersonissos, Greece, Paul Groth, Maria-Esther Vidal, Fabian Suchanek, Pedro Szekley, Pavan Kapanipathi, Catia Pesquita, Hala Skaf-Molli, Minna Tamper (editors), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 13261, pages 478–494, Springer, Cham, May 2022.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202206083619
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-06981-9_28 View at publisher
  • [Publication 5]: Eljas Oksanen, Frida Ehrnsten, Heikki Rantala and Eero Hyvönen. Semantic Solutions for Democratising Archaeological and Numismatic Data Analysis. ACM Journal of Computing and Cultural Heritage, Volume 16, issue 4, Pages 1–18, Association for Computing Machinery, January 2024.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202401171484
    DOI: 10.1145/3625302 View at publisher
  • [Publication 6]: Heikki Rantala, Annastiina Ahola, Esko Ikkala and Eero Hyvönen. How to create Easily a Data Analytic Semantic Portal on Top of a SPARQL Endpoint: Introducing the Configurable Sampo-UI Framework. In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on the Visualization and Interaction for Ontologies (VOILA! 2023), Linked Data and Knowledge Graphs, Athens, Greece, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol-3508, https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3508/paper3. pdf, November 2023. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202311296981.
  • [Publication 7]: Heikki Rantala, Eljas Oksanen, Frida Ehrnsten and Eero Hyvönen. Publishing Numismatic Public Finds on the Semantic Web for Digital Humanities Research – CoinSampo Linked Open Data Service and Semantic Portal. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop of Semantic Digital Humanities (SemDH 2024, Hersonissos, Greece), CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol-3724, https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3724/paper3.pdf, May 2024. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202410166761.
  • [Publication 8]: Heikki Rantala, Petri Leskinen, Lilli Peura and Eero Hyvönen. Representing and Searching Associations in Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graphs Using Faceted Search. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Semantic Systems, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Studies on the Semantic Web, Volume 60: Knowledge Graphs in the Age of Language Models and Neuro-Symbolic AI, pages 420 – 435, IOS Press, https://doi.org/10.3233/SSW240033, September 2024.
    Full text in Acris/Aaltodoc: https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202411137081
    DOI: 10.3233/SSW240033 View at publisher

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https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-64-2822-2

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[diss] Perustieteiden korkeakoulu / SCI