Welcome back to part two of the evaluation of the surveys, we conducted with the DBpedia chapters.
Survey Evaluation – Episode Two
The second survey focused on technical matters. We asked the chapters about the usage of DBpedia services and tools, technical problems and challenges and potential reasons to overcome them. Have a look below.
Again, only nine out of 21 DBpedia chapters participated in this survey. And again, that means, the results only represent roughly 42% of the DBpedia chapter population
The good news is, all chapters maintain a local DBpedia endpoint. Yay! More than 55 % of the chapters perform their own extraction. The rest of them apply a hybrid approach reusing some datasets from DBpedia releases and additionally, extract some on their own.
Datasets, Services and Applications
In terms of frequency of dataset updates, the situation is as follows: 44,4 % of the chapters update them once a year. The answers of the remaining ones differ in equal shares, depending on various factors. See the graph below.
When it comes to the maintenance of links to local datasets, most of the chapters do not have additional ones. However, some do maintain links to, for example, Greek WordNet, the National Library of Greece Authority record, Geonames.jp and the Japanese WordNet. Furthermore, some of the chapters even host other datasets of local interest, but mostly in a separate endpoint, so they keep separate graphs.
Apart from hosting their own endpoint, most chapters maintain one or the other additional service such as Spotlight, LodLive or LodView.
Moreover, the chapters have additional applications they developed on top of DBpedia data and services.
Besides, they also gave us some reasons why they were not able to deploy DBpedia related services. See their replies below.
DBpedia Chapter set-up
Lastly, we asked the technical heads of the chapters what the hardest task for setting up their chapter had been. The answers, again, vary as the starting position of each chapter differed. Read a few of their replies below.
The hardest technical task for setting up the chapter was:
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to keep virtuoso up to date
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the chapter specific setup of DBpedia plugin in Virtuoso
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the Extraction Framework
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configuring Virtuoso for serving data using server’s FQDN and Nginx proxying
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setting up the Extraction Framework, especially for abstracts
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correctly setting up the extraction process and the DBpedia facet browser
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fixing internationalization issues, and updating the endpoint
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keeping the extraction framework working and up to date
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updating the server to the specific requirements for further compilation – we work on Debian
Final words
With all the data and results we gathered, we will get together with our chapter coordinator to develop a strategy of how to improve technical as well as organizational issues the surveys revealed. By that, we hope to facilitate a better exchange between the chapters and with us, the DBpedia Association. Moreover, we intend to minimize barriers for setting up and maintaining a DBpedia chapter so that our chapter community may thrive and prosper.
In the meantime, spread your work and share it with the community. Do not forget to follow and tag us on Twitter ( @dbpedia ). You may also want to subscribe to our newsletter.
We will keep you posted about any updates and news.
Yours
DBpedia Association
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