Semantic MediaWiki: a tool for collaborative databases

This promises to be a great event at KCL later this month:

Semantic MediaWiki: a tool for collaborative databases

Monday 26th September 2011

Anatomy Theatre and Museum, King’s College London
6th floor, King’s Building, Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS

In association with Judaica Europeana, the British Library and the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) Project

On 26th September, the Centre for e-Research will host a day exploring the Semantic MediaWiki, led by New York City-based developer Yaron Koren.

Please register for the event(s) you wish to attend using the links below.

WORKSHOP: Semantic MediaWiki: a practical workshop

15:30 – 17:00, Anatomy Museum

The first part of the day will consist of an interactive seminar in the Anatomy Museum led by Koren, demonstrating the principles of Semantic MediaWiki. Participants will have an opportunity to create and use their own data structures on a public test wiki. The workshop will be of particular interest to people interested in the development and application of wiki technologies, and their place in digital research infrastructures.

Please register to attend at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1519008395

LECTURE: The Judaica Europeana Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment) database

18:00, Anatomy Lecture Theatre (TBC) followed by refreshments (All welcome)

With an introduction by Lena Stanley Clamp, Director, European Association for Jewish Culture

This seminar will give an overview of Semantic MediaWiki, with a special focus on the Judaica Europeana Haskala database of the Jewish Enlightenment literature, which is currently being converted into an SMW system. While the focus of the lecture will be on Semantic MediaWiki, the lecture will be of relevant to broad aspects of e-Research. The British Library is a partner in the Judaica Europeana project to assist with technical advice and dissemination.

There will also be a short introduction to the EU-funded EHRI project by Tobias Blanke.

Please register to attend at: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1995834595

About Semantic MediaWiki

Semantic wikis are a technology that combines the massively collaborative abilities of a wiki with the well-defined structure and data-reusability of a database. Semantic MediaWiki is an extension, first developed in 2005, that adds this capability to MediaWiki, the popular open-source wiki application best known for powering Wikipedia. SMW is by far the most successful semantic wiki technology, currently in use on hundreds of wikis around the world, including internal use at major companies like Audi and Boeing.

There are a set of additional MediaWiki extensions that work alongside Semantic MediaWiki to extend its functionality; Semantic MediaWiki is almost always used together with one or more of these, and the term ‘Semantic MediaWiki’ is sometimes used to describe the entire set. Using Semantic MediaWiki and its related extensions, one can easily create custom data structures that provide forms for letting users add and edit data, and whose data can be queried and displayed in a variety of ways, including tables, charts, maps and calendars.

About the speakers

Yaron Koren is one of the main developers of Semantic MediaWiki. He has been involved with the project since 2006; and runs the MediaWiki consulting company WikiWorks, and helps to run the MediaWiki-based wiki farm Referata. Yaron grew up in Israel and the United States, and currently lives in New York City.

Lena Stanley Clamp is the director of the European Association for Jewish Culture and manager of the Judaica Europeana project, which will contribute vast quantities of digital content documenting Jewish life in Europe to Europeana – Europe’s libraries, archives and museums online.