Learning Wikibase: Boost Your Project with Linked data
By Julieta Arancio | A spotlight on a Sprint for Internet Health project
Learning Wikibase is a project developing an open educational platform for everyone to learn how to install and run a Wikibase instance. Wikibase is an open source software suite for running a collaborative knowledge base; Wikidata is probably the most popular example of a Wikibase instance.
I interviewed Sandra Müllrick (@sandramuellrick, LearnWikibase) to learn more about Learning Wikibase and how you can contribute to the work.
What is Learning Wikibase?
Learning Wikibase is a place to learn and share online resources (e.g. articles, videos, workflows, FAQ’s) that make it easier to install, maintain or customize your Wikibase instance. The goal is to share our learnings and experience to benefit from each other.
What can people achieve today by using Wikibase?
Wikibase is free and open source software that can be used to run knowledge databases and linked open data projects. The magic behind it is that it enables users to connect different knowledge bases easily, work collaboratively, ask very complex queries and visualize data based on the principles of the semantic web.
There are already quite a few different showcases:
- Rhizome, an arts organization in New York City, is an early adopter of Wikibase and using it for its archive of born-digital art and digital preservation activities;
- Factgrid is a database for historians about cataloguing the history of the illuminati and other humanities research;
- PersonalDataIO is a non-profit seeking to empower individuals to exercise their rights online, using wikibase to map how companies use personal data online.
Why did you start Learning Wikibase?
Wikibase is an early stage software project and a lot of people inside and outside the Wikimedia universe are excited about it, but it still remains a bit difficult for users to work with it.
The challenge for me now is to describe in an easy way how users can set up a Wikibase instance and work with it, so more people can seize its advantages.
There is a lot of knowledge about this floating around, based on individual experiences, that I wanted to collect on Learning Wikibase. That is one of the reasons why it is built as a Git page based on a simple repository, so everyone is able to edit and contribute to it.
What challenges have you faced working on this project?
One of the main challenges was to create learning resources which are understandable and editable by tech and non-tech people. In terms of collaboration, creating short and focused tasks people can work on can be challenging. Also attracting the attention of a wider audience to the project is tough.
What kind of skills do I need to contribute to your project?
We welcome contributions of users who have technical experience with Wikibase and also of people who may not have that background but are interested in the project.
Tech skills related to Wikibase include working with Docker, Openstack, Composer, Linked Data, RDF, SPARQL, tools for data visualization. Users can also contribute with other skills such as writing, translations, video editing and more.
How can others contribute to your project?
People with a technical background can contribute through writing lessons or improving our current documentation. We also need people who can test the software and share their insights. Contributors can also help the project with translations, enhancing design, project management, screencast or video editing.
How has the Open Leaders program helped you with your project?
The Open Leaders program helped me to come up with a great structure to develop the project and an awesome global community of participants in the same cohort. It was helpful to get feedback on your ideas, fears and hands-on prototypes.
What meme or gif best represents your project?
Join us wherever you are during the month of May at Mozilla’s Sprint for Internet Health to work on many amazing open projects! Join a diverse network of scientists, educators, artists, engineers and others in person and online to hack and build projects for a health Internet.
This post by Julieta Arancio is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
