Reshaping the knowledge graph by connecting researchers, data and practices in researchspace

Abstract

ResearchSpace is an open source platform designed at the British Museum to help establish a community of researchers, where their underlying activities are framed by data sharing, active engagement in formal arguments, and semantic publishing. Using Semantic Web languages and technologies, the innovations of the system are shaped by a social conceptualisation of the graph-based representation of information. This is employed by integrated semantic components aimed at subject experts that offer mechanisms to create, annotate, assert, argue, search, cite, and justify data-driven research. This paper showcases a new onto-epistemological approach that supports researchers to contribute to a growing and sustainable corpus of knowledge that has history, not just provenance, built-in. It describes our considerations in designing for interdisciplinary collaboration, usability and trust in the digital space, highlighted by use cases in archaeology, art history, and history of science.