LOD.CS.UNIPA Project: an experience of LOD at the University of Palermo

Abstract

This paper describes the LOD.CS.UNI.PA Project and its main goal, the transformation process of data already available on the web site of the Computer Science curricula web site at the University of Palermo into data ready to be connected to the LOD. Since 1997 information about bachelor and master degrees in Computer Science at the University of Palermo has been published on the web, and provides a reference point for students, teachers and researchers who have easy access to the information they require. However, the users of the web are now changing; data cannot be published only for human comprehension but intelligent devices also need access to web data and above all they need to understand them. In 2006 Tim Berners Lee presented a star rating system for the data available on the web. Following his five star classification, the aim of the work described in this paper is to raise the level of data concerning degrees in Computer Science at Palermo University, from one star (data available on the web in whatever format), to five stars (data connected to other LOD datasets). So far the data has been transformed to a four star level in which each item has a URL that can be dereferenced, but the final objective of this project is to reach the five star level.