Open Context is intended to make research data more valued and used through powerful browse, search, and analysis services. Simplicity and accessibility in the user experience and underlying technologies are a key goal. Open Context content is therefore accessible through standard web-browsers without the need for special plug-ins Since many users already have favorite software tools, Open Context makes it easy to select and download primary data in Excel or HTML table formats. Additional analysis, graphing, and other types of visualization can then be performed using familiar desktop tools.
Open Context is built upon a very generalized, very flexible data structure. This data structure is a subset of the structures described in the ArchaeoML global schema, developed by the OCHRE Project at the University of Chicago. In a nutshell, ArchaeoML describes items (especially locations and objects, people, and projects), their descriptive properties, and their networked relationships. ArchaeoML has the advantage of being very simple, and as demonstrated with pilot data sets already in OCHRE and Open Context, it can accommodate a wide variety of research data.
Open Context's use of simple, recursive (repeat) data structures has many advantages in terms of simplicity and wide-ranging application. Development is simplified because code can be reused for similar data manipulations. The OpenRecord project (as well as others) have taken a similar strategy, and employ even more generalized data structures to support sharing of all sorts of database content. In addition, ArchaeoML's item-based, networked data structures easily map into other frameworks, especially RDF (the main standard for "Semantic Web" applications). We are currently testing ways of expressing Open Context content in RDF triples (comments and suggestions are welcome!), and are exploring implementation of Open Context with SPARQL databases that manage RDF data
Open Context uses PHP 4 scripts and a MySQL 4.0 relational database running on an Apache server. All of these technologies are very standard, accessible, and widely supported. There is a vast community of web developers that use PHP and MySQL. Costs can be reduced by relying on these very mainstream and non-exotic technologies.
Most Open Context pages are dynamically generated from PHP scripts interacting with a MySQL database. There is relatively little in the way of client side scripts. For better and more responsive tool-windows, tree-menus, and forms, we are currently finalizing development with the open source Dojo AJAX tool kilt and expect to have the advance search functions and tool windows implemented in these AJAX interface tools shortly. Dynamic maps are now generated with the Google Maps API, but can just as easily be accomplished with the more flexible (though not as fast?) OpenLayers map API.
To facilitate integration with written narratives, Open Context automatically generates reciprocal hyperlinks with other Web services that support the open “ping-back” standard. If a person using a weblog or publishing in a “ping-back”-enabled e-journal references an item or a publicly tagged set of items in Open Context, the Open Context system will be automatically informed about what items are being referenced. Open Context will then display links back to the weblog post or e-journal article referencing the Open Context database. Once an editorial board is assembled, all links will be subjected to editorial review. This will ensure that Open Context only registers references to trusted sources
Open Context is only loosely structured. In order to make different research data sets more meaningfully integrated, we are experimenting with a folksonomy system. Users can tag items they find (either by browsing or through searches and queries) and add additional descriptive terms and comments to these items. Tagging helps identify meaningful links across different data sets. Query and search criteria used to select items that get tagged are recorded.
While this initial version can help identify and relate interesting content, it still requires more thought and development. Simple folksonomy systems may not be perfect for research applications. We are exploring ways to refine our folksonomy system to make the subject matter expertise and credentials of tag authors easier to identify. In addition, we are looking at ways of adding some structure to tagging. Some tags will be chronological, some will be descriptive, etc. We imagine folksonomy development will require several iterations of trial and error to refine.
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Open Context produces a variety of RSS-channels that help share its content. RSS is a family of related and very widely used XML- and RDF-based standards for sharing and syndicating content (especially news and weblog updates) on the Web.
Open Context RSS feeds broadcast recent updates. They can be read by news aggregation services such as MyYahoo! or BlogLines. They can also be easily read and incorporated into other web sites. Contributors can use these features to create their own individual web sites (with their own "branding") while still using content shared in Open Context. The "News" box in the upper right of this web page draws on the RSS feed: http://www.alexandriaarchive.org/rss_aai_news.php We can provide each project and collection in Open Context with its own RSS feed, so that project participants can easily share news and updates about how their contributions are used.
Finally, Open Context makes use of GeoRSS, an RSS standard that includes geographic (latitude and longitude) referencing. That means Open Context updates can be syndicated and displayed on maps presented on different sites across the internet. Here is an example at:
ACME.com.
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