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Wikis of Locality: insights from the Open Guides
Mark Gaved, Tom Heath, Marc Eisenstadt Knowledge Media Institute,
The Open University
Locality is important in people’s lives
When you move somewhere…
you want to know what’s happening there
And probably other people interested in the same things as you
whatever you’re interested in, locality comes first, theme second
Wikis of Locality
• Primarily Locative : Secondarily thematic
• Supporting communities of locality
• Local knowledge repositories
• Geodata important
• Structure= semantic web for the rest of us
• Utilise third party APIs such as GoogleMaps
The Open Guides
• Wiki based online community guides
• Custom code based on Perl
• Currently 18 live GuidesUK Birmingham, Chester, Cotswolds, Glasgow, Lancaster, London, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Southampton Austria Vienna Canada Victoria BC
USA Boston MA, Saint Paul MN Worldwide Tourist Engineer
• Each guide managed by small team (often just one person)
• Under 100 to over 10,000 entries in each
“Semantic web for the rest of us”
Not just free data entry; structured editing provides a framework for content
“Compared with other wikis, the structured metadata is what sets OpenGuides apart”
Geodata is a significant element
Latitude and longitude data is held where possible …
… enabling location based searching…
… and the use of third party APIs such as Google Maps
Structured data also gives us machine-readable metadata for free offering the potential for future re-use of data
So potentially allows us to do interesting things ! (TOM?)
example of somebody else grabbing it … Find me the things I am interested in within 500 mtrs
Mashup but 2 step inference Community not broadcast
Different types of contributions
Different types of authors
Placeholders
Different types of authors
PlaceholdersCompleters
Different types of authors
PlaceholdersCompleters
Different types of authors
PlaceholdersCompletersHousekeepers
Different types of authors
PlaceholdersCompletersHousekeepers
Different types of authors
PlaceholdersCompletersHousekeepersScrapers
Sustainability of open guides a concern
London Milton Keynes
Boston Oxford Saint Pauls
Admins 4 2 1 1 1
Contributors ? 37 89 ? 10
Milton Keynes BostonSaint Pauls
Sustainability of open guides a concern
London Milton Keynes
Boston Oxford Saint Pauls
Admins 4 2 1 1 1
Contributors ? 37 89 ? 10
Milton Keynes BostonSaint Pauls
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
Authors
Co
ntr
ibu
tors
‘The Long Tail’...and now...
‘The Boston Scraper Effect’(encouraging many small contributors)
Some issues raised...
“Some areas of the city get much more complete coverage than
others, due to having regular contributors living there. I like to think
that over time this will improve”
“I've wondered about 'writeability' in the interface - to what extent can
non-geeks feel empowered to contribute, not scared off”
“I am working to establish a tool which is usable for more than just
technical users”
“I think the amount of things "a bit like" the Open Guide that are now
in the world, is an indicator that the project has been a real success.”
Future ideas…
• New added-value services from semantic web?
• Why do we get such a high search ranking?
• How do we evolve the interface? structure is good vs structure is a straight-jacket
• Wiki lifecycles: will the Guides reach critical mass?
• Who’s using them anyway?
Thank you
Mark GavedTom Heath
Marc Eisenstadt
{m.b.gaved, t.heath, m.eisenstadt} @open.ac.uk
http://kmi.open.ac.uk