LinkedLab: A Linked Data platform for Research Communities

Although most research communities actively disseminate information about their projects, publications, and members, there is no well-established standard for doing so, and thus the value of this data is reduced, e.g. in terms of accessibility, discoverability, and reusability. Linked Data is a method of publishing and linking structured data on the Web using RDF (Resource Description Framework). We propose LinkedLab: a Linked Data based solution for data management regarding research communities. The use of Linked Data affords a more effective way to access, organize, and integrate this data. LinkedLab is organized into three major parts: the LinkedLab ontology, the LinkedLab nodes, and the LinkedLab integrator. The ontology presents a unified view of structured data stored across multiple LinkedLab nodes, enabling data integration by the integrator. The combination of these parts provides all necessary requirements to maximizing the potential benefits of Linked Data in the research environment.