Semantic MediaWiki

Draft

Introduction

“Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is an extension of Mediawiki – the wiki application best known for powering Wikipedia – that helps to search, organise, tag, browse, evaluate, and share the wiki's content. While traditional wikis contain only text which computers can neither understand nor evaluate, SMW adds semantic annotations that allow a wiki to function as a collaborative database. Semantic MediaWiki was first released in 2005, and currently has over ten developers, and is in use on hundreds of sites. In addition, a large number of related extensions have been created that extend the ability to edit, display and browse through the data stored by SMW: the term "Semantic MediaWiki" is sometimes used to refer to this entire family of extensions. Semantic MediaWiki has been funded in part by projects of the Framework Programmes (FP) of the European Union, SEKT and ACTIVE and by project Halo.” (Introduction to Semantic MediaWiki, retrieved 14:31, 24 August 2011 (CEST))

According to Semantic MediaWiki, “is currently in active use in hundreds of sites, in many languages, around the world, including Fortune 500 companies, biomedical projects, government agencies and consumer directories”.

Syntax extensions for Semantic MediaWiki

Typed links

MediaWiki [[is a:: Wiki]]

Annotated values

The Swiss Grading scale goes from 0 to [[grading scale:=6]]

Semantic MediaWiki software

Download and Installation

Tested for MW 1.17 on 18:48, 24 August 2011 (CEST).

Download

• Download SMW from Sourceforge. As of Aug 2011, the latest version is 1.6.1.
• You first need to install the Validator extension ! Download of Validator is included in the SMW download (when last checked)
• (short) Installation instructions for SMW 1.6.1. Also read the Administrator manual, and in particular Help:Configuration

PHP requirements

The mbstrings non-default extension must be installed.

Under Ubuntu 10+, it should be there, but check:

php --info | grep mbstring

Configure LocalSettings.php (mandatory)

$smwgNamespaceIndex = 106; // on top of others, adjust to yours
require_once( "$IP/extensions/Validator/Validator.php" );
include_once( "$IP/extensions/SemanticMediaWiki/SemanticMediaWiki.php" );
enableSemantics('edutechwiki.unige.ch'); // adjust to yours

Configure options in LocalSettings.php (there are many many!)

$smwgShowFactbox = SMW_FACTBOX_NONEMPTY; 

Setup the database

• Press the (first) button in Special:SMWAdmin

Testing

Create a page like:

• SMW sandbox

Then enter something like:

Testing - adding a property called "testproperty" with value [[testproperty::SandBox]]

Semantic MediaWiki extensions

• Extension:Semantic Forms is an extension to Semantic MediaWiki that allows users to add, edit and query structure data using forms.
  • Example use: Gardenology.org - Plant & Garden Wiki Encyclopedia, Discourse DB, Example of a form at placeography.org

• Semantic Result Formats is a Semantic MediaWiki extension that bundles a number of further result formats for SMW's inline queries. It supports formats such as graphing, plotting, timelines, etc.
  • Example: SemanticWeb.org

• Semantic Maps - Semantic Maps (documentation)

• Semantic Watchlist extends Semantic MediaWiki by adding the capability to watch/follow sets of properties for groups of pages (that can be specified with categories and namespaces).

• Surveys extension (provisional SVN URL)

Data import/export

• Support for RDF triplestores (via SPARQL)

SMW packaged services and distributions

• SMW+ is a prepackaged version of MediaWiki/Semantic Wiki described as "semantic enterprise wiki that lets you create and share knowledge with your team." Both a free version and a pro version are available.

Links

Manuals and introductions

See also: User manual, which includes additional links

Official

• User manual (Entry page)

• Admin manual (Entry page)

• Quick Reference Guide: PNG or PDF

At SMW Community Wiki

Various

• Semantic MediaWiki (Wikipedia)

• Semantic MediaWiki vs. Sharepoint at Wikiworks.com

• WikiWorks blog

• blog (Jeroen De Dauw)

• Semantic MediaWiki page at TechPresentations.org (includes some slides, etc.)

• New York Semantic Web Meetup (last updated 2010, includes pointers to events)

Semantic MediaWiki sites

Indexes (most listed sites are not really maintained)

• MediaWiki sites (Index) available at SMW Community Wiki

• Sites using Semantic MediaWiki (Index)

• Testimonials (not many)

Some good/interesting technical examples

• Gardenology.org - Plant & Garden Wiki Encyclopedia
• food finds
• SNPedia, a wiki investigating human genetics.
• Swiss Experimnet, A platform to enable real-time environmental experiments through wireless sensor networks and a common, modern, generic cyber-infrastructure.
• AIFB Web Portal, at Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods (AIFB) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. (Includes prime contributors to the Semantic MediaWiki code).

Bibliography

• Krötzsch, Markus; Denny Vrandecic, Max Völkel, Heiko Haller, Rudi Studer. korrekt:Semantic Wikipedia (JWS2007)|Semantic Wikipedia. Journal of Web Semantics 5/2007, pp. 251–261. Elsevier 2007.

• Herzig, Daniel M. and Basil Ell: Semantic MediaWiki in Operation: Experiences with Building a Semantic Portal. Proceedings of the 9th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC-10). Springer 2010. PDF

• Millard, Ian, Afraz Jaffri, H. Glaser, and UB. Rodriguez-Castro. Using a Semantic MediaWiki to Interact with a Knowledge Based Infrastructure, International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management, Podebrady, Czech Republic, 2006.

• Krötzsch. M and D. Vrandecic. Wikipedia and the Semantic Web, part 2, Second International Wikimedia Conference, Wikimania2006, Cambridge, MA, USA.

• Krötzsch. M, D. Vrandecic, M. Völkel, H. Haller, and R. Studer. Semantic Wikipedia (ESWC2006 demo), European Semantic Web Conference, ESWC2006, Budva, Montenegro. Best Poster Award.

• Völkel. M, M. Krötzsch, D. Vrandecic, H. Haller, R. Studer. Semantic Wikipedia, presented at WWW2006
  • slides as PDF

• Völkel, M et al. (2006). Web 2.0, Social Tagging & Co at the Presentation at AKWM, Karlsruhe.

• Krötzsch. M, D. Vrandecic, and M. Völkel (2005) Wikipedia and the Semantic Web - The Missing Links, First International Wikimedia Conference, Wikimania2005, Frankfurt, Germany.

• Vrandecic, Denny; Yaron Koren, Daniel Kinzler (2011). Towards a Semantic Wikipedia, Open submission for Wikimania 2011. (Abstract only)