How is data structured on Wikidata? Every item of data on Wikidata represents a unique entity so is given a unique Q number to identify it. Douglas Adams is Q42. Can you guess what Q13 is? Within these item pages, information is stored in a series of statements. A statement consists of claims which are […]
Read more "Structured, linked, open data"FAQ What is the difference between Wikidata and DBpedia? How do you find which properties to use on Wikidata? You can go to a high profile example to see the properties used on their item page. e.g. RMS Titanic if you are interested in properties for ships. Alternatively, you can use the PropBrowse tool and […]
Read more "FAQ and Further Reading"Data Science for Design MSc students worked on a project to import the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft database into Wikidata. This fabulous resource began life in the 1990s before being realised in 2001-2003. It had as its aim to collect, collate and record all known information about accused witches and witchcraft belief in early modern […]
Read more "Real world datasets – the Survey of Scottish Witchcraft"We’ve created some SPARQL queries recently which demonstrate the information Wikidata possesses about alumni from the University of Edinburgh. Map of University of Edinburgh alumni by place of birth. Timeline of University of Edinburgh alumni by date of birth. Timeline of works by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is very easy to amend these queries to […]
Read more "Practical – Personalising a SPARQL query and mass edits"Creating Listeria lists is a great way of finding out what information Wikidata possesses and, by extension, what Wikipedia may be missing. e.g. WikiProject Women in Red use Wikidata red lists to ascertain where to focus their editing efforts when creating new pages about notable women. MySociety use them to identify politicians missing from Wikidata […]
Read more "Practical – Let’s get nautical"Listeria is a very powerful tool that lets you create dynamic bespoke lists pulling from Wikidata which you can read/write to from Wikipedia. For it to work, you need to have a Wikipedia userpage in the first instance. Part 1 – Creating a userpage on Wikipedia. Step 1: Go to Wikipedia. Step 2: Login with […]
Read more "Practical – Women in Medicine"Scotland has just been voted the most beautiful country in the world in a Rough Guide readers’ poll. The world’s largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, takes place for the whole of September. Share your high quality pics of listed buildings and monuments to Wikimedia Commons and help preserve our cultural heritage online. Entry is […]
Read more "Practical – adding images to Wikidata"What is Wikidata? Wikidata is a free linked database of secondary data that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. Wikidata acts as central storage for the structured data of its Wikimedia sister projects including Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, and others. NB: You can access the other projects from the foot of Wikipedia’s […]
Read more "Introduction to Wikidata"