Welcome to the ARIADNE support portal

ARIADNE (FP7-INFRASTRUCTURES-2012-1) aims to integrate the existing archaeological research data infrastructures so that researchers can use the various distributed datasets and new and powerful technologies as an integral component of the archaeological research methodology. There is now a large availability of archaeological digital datasets that altogether span different periods, domains and regions; more are continuously created as a result of the increasing use of IT. They are the accumulated outcome of the research of individuals, teams and institutions, but form a vast and fragmented corpus so that their potential is constrained by difficult access and non-homogenous perspectives.


This portal will help the user to get familiar with the structure of the ARIADNE Dataset Catalogue Model (ACDM). Guidelines about how to create an instance of ACDM and information about the provided services are given. Moreover, the user can ask questions and receive answers from other members of the community through ARIADNE Support Q&A. Last but not least, a Helpdesk is supported through which requests are streamlined. Every support request is assigned a unique ticket number which you can use to track the progress and responses online.

ARIADNE Dataset Catalogue Model (ACDM)

ACDM is an extension of the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) , a quasi-recommendation of the W3C Consortium that “is well-suited to representing government data catalogues such as Data.gov and data.gov.uk.” The reason for adopting the DCAT Vocabulary (apart from re-use) is that DCAT is proposed as a tool for publishing datasets as Open Data. Its adoption places therefore ARIADNE in an ideal position for publishing datasets as Open Data as well. To this end, ARIADNE will be following the recommendations made in the “DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe” concerning the use of the terms of the DCAT ontology. These recommendations establish which attributes or classes are mandatory; for the moment, we will not strictly adhere to these recommendations because we are using DCAT for internal purposes. ACDM makes usage of the following namespaces:

Class structure of the model

The central notion of the model is the class ArchaeologicalResource, that has as instances the main resources described in a catalogue. These are categorized in services, language resources and data resources. A short description for each class is following.

  • dcat:Catalog -> This class is part of the DCAT Vocabulary. It has catalogues as instances, therefore the ARIADNE Catalogue will be an instance of this class.
  • foaf:Agent -> This class is used in this schema to model the institution that makes a resource available.
  • :DataResource -> This class has as instances the archaeological resources that are data containers such as databases, GIS, collections or datasets. The class is created for the sole purpose of defining the domain and the range of a number of associations. It is therefore an abstract class, it does not have any instance, it only inherits instances form its sub-classes.
  • :Database -> This class is a specialization of the class DataResource, and has as instances databases, defined as a set of homogeneously structured records managed through a Database Management System, such as MySQL.
  • :Dataset -> This class is a specialization of the classes DataResource and dcat:Dataset, the latter coming from the DCAT Vocabulary. It has archaeological datasets as instances. An archaeological dataset is defined as a set of homogeneously structured records that are not managed through a Database Management System.
  • :GIS -> This class is a specialization of the class DataResource, and has as instances Geographical Information Systems (GISs).
  • :DataFormat -> An instance of this class describes the structure of a Datasets, or of a MetadataSchema, or of metadata record.
  • :DBSchema -> An instance of this class describes the structure of a Database.
  • :MetadataSchema -> This is a subclass of LanguageResource having as instances metadata schemas used in the archaeological domain. This is the main class in the metadata registry of ARIADNE.
  • :Distribution -> This class represents an accessible form of an ARIADNE resource as for example a downloadable file, an RSS feed or a web service. It extends the class dcat:Distribution by adding three attributes (:numOfRecords, :OAI-PMHServerURI, :platformDescription).
  • :Mapping -> An instance of this class represents a mapping between two language resources.
  • :Vocabulary -> An instance of this class represents a vocabulary or authority file, used in the associated structure. The instances of this class define the ARIADNE vocabulary registry.
  • :Licence -> An instance of this class represents a Licence.
  • :Service -> This class specializes the class dbpedia.org/ontology/Software.

Mapping Guidelines

First of all, it is worth to be mentioned that ACDM model has been revised several times as modifications have occured. The last 3 versions are:

      ACDM Version_2.6. This version includes re-modeling of the Service class, minor changes to other parts that are indirectly affected (e.g., subject properties moved down to data and language resource).
      ACDM Version_2.5.6. This version includes some more detailed descriptions and changes in the cardianlity tables.
      ACDM Version_2.5.5. This is the latest version and changes have been made to attributes of some elements.
    As ACDM model has been changed, new xsd files have been created. Likewise to the vesrions of the ACDM model, the last 3 XSD vesrions are: In general, a XML should be validated by the corresponding XSD file. You can download the XSD file here . A directory with all the appropriate xsd's needed for the validation of your xml records (according to the latest version) is also available .
    Moreoever, a XML instance record is available for your reference while an example of ADS is available here .

    DataResources user guide

    Last but not least, you can download here the most recent version of the user guide which aims to aid the ARIADNE data providers in preparing their data for upload into the catalogue.

Helpdesk

A Helpdesk service is available. Through the Helpdesk users can submit tickets about an issue and get personalised support. You can access it via the following link

Questions & Answers

A Questions & Answers service is available. You can access it via the following link

Services

The ARIADNE portal provides a variety of services, catering to the needs of all the ARIADNE communities. These services are:

  • searching and browsing collections. The user can index and retrieve content by allowing direct entry of keywords or defining multiple parameters like geographic and temporal parameters. Moreover, the user is able to specify the language for the keywords as multilingual search is supported.
  • geo-integrated searhing. Geo-integrated search presents datasets on a map, allowing entering as parameteres geographic names or specifying explicit distances. The geographic area can also be specified by zooming/panning on a map.
  • timeline searching. The user is able to define a search for time period within the collections. Otherwise, the user is able to visualise the collection on the timeline and refine the search by indicating periods or exploring it.
  • previewing collections. The user is able to see the results after a search in list, map or timeline view. Moreover, the results can be ordered on different properties while the list can show a summary of the metadata of each record.