Distributed Knowledge Graphs 1
UNC SILS, INLS 620, Fall 2025
August 19
Introduction to the course
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 1,000 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Recurse Center. “Social Rules,” n.d. https://www.recurse.com/social-rules.
August 21
GitHub and GitHub Classroom
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notes
π To read before this meeting:
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GitHub, Inc. “Start Your Journey: Learn the Basics of GitHub.” GitHub Docs, 2024. https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/start-your-journey.
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GitHub, Inc. “Apply to GitHub Education as a Student.” GitHub Docs, 2024. https://docs.github.com/en/education/explore-the-benefits-of-teaching-and-learning-with-github-education/github-education-for-students/apply-to-github-education-as-a-student.
August 21
Hello world assignment available
August 26
Visual Studio Code and Codespaces
View
notes
Total amount of required viewing for this meeting: 14 minutes
πΊ To view before this meeting:
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Viewing tips
You can follow along at https://vscode.dev.
August 28
GitHub Copilot
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 2,300 words
π To read before this meeting:
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GitHub, Inc. “What Is GitHub Copilot?” GitHub Docs, 2024. https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/about-github-copilot/what-is-github-copilot.
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Butterick, Matthew. “GitHub Copilot Investigation,” 2022. https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com.
August 28
Hello world assignment due
September 2
Forms of data
View
notes
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 12,800 words
π To read before this meeting:
September 4
(Semantic) data modeling I
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notes
Total amount of required viewing for this meeting: 19 minutes
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 8,000 words
Data modeling is the design of a formal language intended to aid communication and mediate among different purposes and perspectives.
πΊ To view before this meeting:
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “What Is the Semantic Web?” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 1–18. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
September 9
(Semantic) data modeling II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 7,000 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Semantic Modeling.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 19–35. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
September 9
Data modeling assignment available
September 11
The Web I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 10,200 words
The (World Wide) Web is an Internet-scale distributed hypermedia system. It exists by means of voluntary compliance with open communication protocols and data format standards.
π To read before this meeting:
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Richardson, Leonard, and Mike Amundsen. “Surfing the Web.” In RESTful Web APIs, 1–16. Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly, 2013. PDF.
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Hogan, Aidan. “Introduction.” In The Web of Data, 1–14. Springer, 2020. PDF.
Reading tips
Focus on section 1.2 (βThe Current Webβ), pages 6β14.
September 16
The Web II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 4,900 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Richardson, Leonard, and Mike Amundsen. “Resources and Representations.” In RESTful Web APIs, 29–43. Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly, 2013. PDF.
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OptionalAllemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Linked Data.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 85–118. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
September 16
Data modeling assignment due
September 18
RDF: terms, triples, graphs I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 7,000 words
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a conceptual model for structuring information into triples that can be combined into graphs.
π To read before this meeting:
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DuCharme, Bob. “What Is RDF?,” June 27, 2021. https://www.bobdc.com/blog/whatisrdf/.
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Stardog. “Graph Data Model,” 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20190306231928/https://www.stardog.com/tutorials/data-model/.
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Schreiber, Guus, and Yves Raimond. “RDF Data Model.” In RDF 1.1 Primer. W3C, 2014. https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-primer/#section-data-model.
September 18
The Web assignment available
September 23
RDF: terms, triples, graphs II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 7,000 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “RDF—The Basis of the Semantic Web.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 37–67. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalHogan, Aidan. “Resource Description Framework.” In The Web of Data, 59–109. Springer, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalW3C. “RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax,” February 25, 2014. https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/.
September 25
RDF: serializations I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 5,100 words
Because RDF is a purely conceptual model, it does not specify how data should be written down or serialized. There are several alternative standards for serialization.
π To read before this meeting:
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Schreiber, Guus, and Yves Raimond. “Writing RDF Graphs.” In RDF 1.1 Primer. W3C, 2014. https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-primer/#section-graph-syntax.
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Alternatives for Serialization.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 68–63. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
September 30
RDF: serializations II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 5,000 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Hogan, Aidan. “RDF Syntaxes.” In The Web of Data, 94–109. Springer, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalSporny, Manu. What Is JSON-LD?, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vioCbTo3C-4.
September 30
The Web assignment due
October 2
Ryan is out of town
I will be be out of town, so we will not meet today.
October 7
Well-being day
Due to the well-being day, we will not meet today.
October 9
RDF Schema and RDF vocabularies I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 2,200 words
RDF Schema is a data modeling language layered on top of the basic RDF conceptual model. It provides additional tools for describing classifications and collections of resources.
π To read before this meeting:
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DuCharme, Bob. “What Is RDFS?,” July 25, 2021. https://www.bobdc.com/blog/whatisrdfs/.
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Schreiber, Guus, and Yves Raimond. “RDF Vocabularies.” In RDF 1.1 Primer. W3C, 2014. https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-primer/#section-vocabulary.
October 14
RDF Schema and RDF vocabularies II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 11,300 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “RDF Schema.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 201–32. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalHogan, Aidan. “RDF Schema and Semantics.” In The Web of Data, 111–83. Springer, 2020. PDF.
October 14
RDFS assignment available
October 16
Fall break
Due to fall break, we will not meet today.
October 21
Wikidata and Wikibase I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 5,100 words
Wikidata is a free and openly editable knowledge base that is published as RDF. Wikibase is the software it runs on.
π To read before this meeting:
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Vanderbilt University. “Learn Wikidata.” Accessed January 7, 2022. https://www.learnwikidata.net/.
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Vrandečić, Denny, and Markus Krötzsch. “Wikidata: A Free Collaborative Knowledgebase.” Communications of the ACM 57, no. 10 (September 23, 2014): 78–85. https://doi.org/10.1145/2629489.
October 23
Wikidata and Wikibase II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 6,800 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Wikidata. “Help:Items,” n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Items.
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Wikidata. “Help:Properties,” n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Properties.
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Wikidata. “Help:Statements,” n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Statements.
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Wikidata. “Help:Data Type,” n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Data_type.
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OptionalWikibase. “Wikibase/DataModel,” n.d. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/DataModel.
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OptionalWikibase. “Wikibase/Indexing/RDF Dump Format,” n.d. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase/Indexing/RDF_Dump_Format.
October 23
RDFS assignment due
October 28
SPARQL I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 19,200 words
The SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) is a query language for RDF.
π To read before this meeting:
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DuCharme, Bob. “Jumping Right in: Some Data and Some Queries.” In Learning SPARQL: Querying and Updating with SPARQL 1.1, 2nd ed., 1–17. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media, 2013. PDF.
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DuCharme, Bob. “SPARQL Queries: A Deeper Dive.” In Learning SPARQL: Querying and Updating with SPARQL 1.1, 2nd ed., 47–102. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media, 2013. PDF.
October 28
Wikidata and SPARQL assignment available
October 30
SPARQL II
Total amount of required viewing for this meeting: 45 minutes
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 2,200 words
πΊ To view before this meeting:
-
Viewing tips
You need not watch the entire 111 minutes⦠the first 45 minutes covers the most important things.
π To read before this meeting:
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“A Gentle Introduction to the Wikidata Query Service.” In Wikidata, n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service/A_gentle_introduction_to_the_Wikidata_Query_Service.
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OptionalWikidata. “Wikidata:SPARQL Query Service/Queries,” n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:SPARQL_query_service/queries.
November 4
SPARQL III
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 18,900 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Querying the Semantic Web—SPARQL.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 119–80. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalHogan, Aidan. “SPARQL Query Language.” In The Web of Data, 323–448. Springer, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalW3C. “SPARQL 1.1 Query Language,” March 21, 2013. https://www.w3.org/TR/sparql11-query/.
November 6
Shape constraints I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 19,800 words
Shape constraint languages (SHACL and ShEx) allow us to prescribe a certain βshapeβ for a graph, by requiring or forbidding certain patterns of triples.
π To read before this meeting:
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Hogan, Aidan. “Shape Constraints and Expressions.” In The Web of Data, 449–513. Springer, 2020. PDF.
November 6
Wikidata and SPARQL assignment due
November 11
Shape constraints II
Shape constraint languages (SHACL and ShEx) allow us to prescribe a certain βshapeβ for a graph, by requiring or forbidding certain patterns of triples.
π To read before this meeting:
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Wikidata. “Wikidata:WikiProject Schemas,” n.d. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Schemas.
November 11
SHACL and OWL assignment available
November 13
Shape constraints III
π To read before this meeting:
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OptionalAllemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Extending RDF: RDFS and SHACL.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 181–200. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
November 18
OWL I
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 12,400 words
The Web Ontology Language (OWL) is a data modeling language layered on top of RDF Schema (which is why some parts of OWL are referred to as βRDF-Plus.β OWL enables more complex inferences to be drawn from RDF data.
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “RDFS-Plus.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 233–69. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
November 20
OWL II
Total amount of required reading for this meeting: 22,600 words
π To read before this meeting:
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Using RDFS-Plus in the Wild.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 271–302. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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Allemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Basic OWL.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 319–51. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalAllemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “SKOS—Managing Vocabularies with RDFS-Plus.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 303–18. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalAllemang, Dean, Jim Hendler, and Fabien Gandon. “Counting and Sets in OWL.” In Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist, 3rd ed., 353–89. ACM Books 33. Association for Computing Machinery, 2020. PDF.
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OptionalHogan, Aidan. “Web Ontology Language.” In The Web of Data, 185–322. Springer, 2020. PDF.
November 25β27
Thanksgiving
Due to Thanksgiving, we will not meet this week.