Sampo Model and Series of Semantic Portals

This page presents the ”Sampo” model and series of Linked Open Data services and semantic portals (Hyvönen, 2021), based on six principles:

Support collaborative data creation and publishing.
Use a shared open ontology infrastructure.
Support data analysis and knowledge discovery in addition to data exploration.
Provide multiple perspectives to the same data.
Standardize portal usage by a simple filter-analyze two-step cycle.
Make clear distinction between the Linked Open Data service and the user interface (UI).

Sampo portal data services are provided by the Linked Data Finland platform. For the user interfaces, the Sampo-UI framework has been used since 2019.

The Sampo portals listed below in the table have had millions of end users on the Web in total, suggesting feasibility and sustainability of the approach that has evolved gradually since 2002. The video below overvies the general idea on using Artificial Intelligence in Digital Humanities related to our work on the Sampo systems.

The Sampo model with the underlying Linked Open Data infrastructure in Finland are explained in the keynote presentation at the DCMI 2021 conference below:

Paradigm Shift of Semantic Portals

The Sampo model and portals aim at making a paradigm change in publishing and using cultural heritage content on the Web (Hyvönen, 2020). The contents are not only published as Linked Data but also integrated seamlessly with intelligent tools for data analysis. In our vision, AI should not only help the user in solving research problems, but also in finding new ones using Creative AI methods. We also focus on white box Explainable AI, which is important in humanities research.

In Douglas Adam’s novel “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, the computer was asked “What is the meaning of life”. The answer “42” may be right, but a researcher in humanities would also like to know “why”.

Sampo Portal Series

The Sampo series of semantic portals is listed below.

Table: Published and forth-coming semantic portals that have been implemented using the Sampo model (information updated 04/2021)

Portal project homepage	Public URL	Publication year	Domain	Unique users	Knowledge graph(s) triple count or size	Faceted search engine	User interface framework	Primary data owner
Internal portals
1. MuseumFinland	museosuomi.fi	2004	Museum collections	39 000	210 986	OntoViews	Apache Cocoon	National Museum of Finland
2. CultureSampo	kulttuurisampo.fi	2008	GLAM collections	107 000	11 400 000	Custom	Tapestry	Over 20 Finnish Memory Organizations
3. HealthFinland	-	2008	Health information	Unknown	6 000 documents	Custom	Tapestry	Finnish institute for health and welfare
4. TravelSampo	-	2011	Cultural travel	Unknown	17 000 000 places	Custom	Drupal and jQuery	Several Finnish Memory Organizations
5. WarSampo	sotasampo.fi/en	2015	Military history	857 000	14 322 426	SPARQL Faceter	AngularJS	National Archives of Finland
6. Norssi alumni on the Semantic Web	Norssit.fi	2017	Historical person registries	?	470 000	SPARQL Faceter	AngularJS	Vanhat Norssit ry
7. U. S. Congress Prosopographer	Demonstrator	2017	Historical person registries	?	828 000	SPARQL Faceter	AngularJS	https://github.com/unitedstates/congress-legislators
8. BiographySampo	biografiasampo.fi	2018	Biographies	52 000	5 373 496	SPARQL Faceter	AngularJS	Finnish Literature Society
9. NameSampo	nimisampo.fi/en	2019	Place names	39 000	241 068 456	Sampo-UI		Institute for the Languages of Finland
10. WarVictimSampo 1914–1922	sotasurmat.narc.fi/en	2019	Military history	29 000	9 815 265	Sampo-UI		National Archives of Finland
11. Mapping Manuscript Migrations	mappingmanuscriptmigrations.org	2020	Pre-modern manuscripts	7 800	22 472 633	Sampo-UI		Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Bodleian Libraries, and Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes
12. AcademySampo	akatemiasampo.fi/en	2021	Finnish Academic People 1640–1899	2200	6 552 629	Sampo-UI		University of Helsinki, Finland
13. FindSampo	findsampo.fi	2021	Archaeology	TBA	1 008 720	Sampo-UI		Finnish Heritage Agency
14. WarMemoirSampo	sotamuistot.arkisto.fi	2021	Video memoirs of WW2 veterans	TBA	TBA	Sampo-UI		Tammenlehvän Perinnesäätiö ry
16. LetterSampo projects	LetterSampo Demonstrator	TBA	Early Modern Letters 1500-1800 (Republic of Letters)	TBA	TBA	Sampo-UI		Huygens Institute, correspSearch, University of Oxford, archives in several countries
15. LawSampo	TBA	TBA	Law	TBA	TBA	Sampo-UI		Ministry of Justice, Finland
17. ParliamentSampo	TBA	TBA	Parliamentary data	TBA	TBA	Sampo-UI		Parliament of Finland
18. CoinSampo	TBA	TBA	Archeaology	TBA	TBA	Sampo-UI		Fínnish Heritage Agency, British Museum (PAS), Fitzwilliam Museum
19. HistorySampo	TBA	TBA	Historical events	TBA	TBA	Sampo-UI		Agricola Network of Historians
*External portals*
1. BookSampo	kirjasampo.fi	2011	Finnish fiction literature	Nearly 2 million annually	8 313 263	None	Drupal	Finnish public library consortium
Norske stadnamn	2. toponymi.spraksamlingane.no	2019	Place names	Unknown	217 353 538	Sampo-UI		Norwegian Language Collections
3. Staff portal	-	2019	Human resources	Unknown	Unknown	Sampo-UI		Lingsoft Ltd.

Related videos

LetterSampo- Republic of Letters 1500-1800 on the Semantic Web

LetterSampo from SeCo Research Group on Vimeo.

AcademySampo - Finnish Academic People 1640-1899

BiographySampo - Artificial Intelligence Reading Biographies for the Semantic Web

BiographySampo - Finnish Biographies on the Semantic Web from SeCo Research Group on Vimeo.

WarSampo - World War II on the Semantic Web

WarSampo: Finnish World War II on the Semantic Web from SeCo Research Group on Vimeo.

ParliamentSampo - Parliament of Finland on the Semantic Web

LawSampo - Finnish Legislation and Case Law on the Semantic Web

WarMemoirSampo - Video Interviews of veterans of the Second World War in Finland

Building a National Level Linked Open Data Infrastructure for Digital Humanities in Finland

Building a National Level Linked Open Data Infrastructure for Digital Humanities in Finland from Eero_Hyvonen on Vimeo.

The keynote presentation video of the DCMI 2021 confence below gives an overview of our work on developing a national Semantic Web infrastructure in Finland and its applications.

Contact

Professor Eero Hyvönen
Aalto University and University of Helsinki (HELDIG)
first.last [ at ] aalto.fi

Publications about the Sampo Model and Sampo Series as a Whole

Publications of each particular Sampo portal are available on their respective homepages listed in the above table.

2022

Eljas Oksanen, Heikki Rantala, Jouni Tuominen, Michael Lewis, David Wigg-Wolf, Frida Ehrnsten and Eero Hyvönen: Digital Humanities Solutions for Pan-European Numismatic and Archaeological Heritage Based on Linked Open Data. 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2022. Forth-coming. bib pdf

Mikko Koho , Rafael Leal, Esko Ikkala, Minna Tamper, Heikki Rantala and Eero Hyvönen: Building Lightweight Ontologies for Faceted Search with Named Entity Recognition: Case WarMemoirSampo. International Workshop on Knowledge Graph Generation from Text (TEXT2KG 2022), Proceedings, Springer, May, 2022. Forth-coming. bib pdf

Eero Hyvönen, Laura Sinikallio, Petri Leskinen, Matti La Mela, Jouni Tuominen, Kimmo Elo, Senka Drobac, Mikko Koho, Esko Ikkala, Minna Tamper, Rafael Leal and Joonas Kesäniemi: Finnish Parliament on the Semantic Web: Using ParliamentSampo Data Service and Semantic Portal for Studying Political Culture and Language. Digital Parliamentary data in Action (DiPaDa 2022), Workshop at the 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, long paper, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 3133, May, 2022. bib pdf link

Heikki Rantala and Eero Hyvönen: Who is Related to What and How? Using Biographical Knowledge Graphs for Explainable Relational Search in BiographySampo. May, 2022. Submitted for review. bib pdf

Arttu Oksanen, Minna Tamper, Jouni Tuominen, Aki Hietanen and Eero Hyvönen: A Tool for Pseudonymization of Textual Documents for Digital Humanities Research and Publication. 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, poster paper, book of abtracts, pp. 107-108, March, 2022. Book of Abtsracts. bib pdf

Petri Leskinen, Heikki Rantala and Eero Hyvönen: Analyzing the Lives of Finnish Academic People 1640–1899 in Nordic and Baltic Countries: AcademySampo Data Service and Portal. 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, long paper, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, March, 2022. Forth-coming. bib pdf

Rafael Leal, Heikki Rantala, Mikko Koho, Esko Ikkala, Markus Merenmies and Eero Hyvönen: WarMemoirSampo: A Semantic Portal for War Veteran Interview Videos. 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, short paper, CEUR Worshop Proceedings, March, 2022. Forth-coming. bib pdf

Jouni Tuominen, Mikko Koho, Ilona Pikkanen, Senka Drobac, Johanna Enqvist, Eero Hyvönen, Matti La Mela, Petri Leskinen, Hanna-Leena Paloposki and Heikki Rantala: Constellations of Correspondence: a Linked Data Service and Portal for Studying Large and Small Networks of Epistolary Exchange in the Grand Duchy of Finland. 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, March, 2022. Forth-coming. bib pdf

Mikko Koho, Heikki Rantala and Eero Hyvönen: Digital Humanities and Military History: Analyzing Casualties of the WarSampo Knowledge Graph. 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, short paper, March, 2022. Accepted for presentation, paper under review. bib pdf

Esko Ikkala, Eero Hyvönen, Heikki Rantala and Mikko Koho: Sampo-UI: A Full Stack JavaScript Framework for Developing Semantic Portal User Interfaces. Semantic Web – Interoperability, Usability, Applicability, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 69-84, January, 2022. Online version published in 2021, print version in 2022. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen: How to Create a National Cross-domain Ontology and Linked Data Infrastructure and Use It on the Semantic Web. 2022. Submitted for review. bib pdf

Eero Hyvönen: Digital Humanities on the Semantic Web: Sampo Model and Portal Series. 2022. Semantic Web journal, accepted. bib pdf

Eero Hyvönen, Esko Ikkala, Mikko Koho, and Rafael Leal, Heikki Rantala and Minna Tamper: How to Search and Contextualize Scenes inside Videos for Enriched Watching Experience: Case Stories of the Second World War Veterans. The Semantic Web: ESWC 2022 Satellite Events, Springer, 2022. In press. bib pdf

Petri Leskinen and Eero Hyvönen: Biographical and Prosopographical Analyses of Finnish Academic People 1640–1899 Based on Linked Open Data. 2022. Submitted abstract in 2021. bib

2021

Eero Hyvönen, Laura Sinikallio, Petri Leskinen, Senka Drobac, Jouni Tuominen, Kimmo Elo, Matti La Mela, Mikko Koho, Esko Ikkala, Minna Tamper, Rafael Leal and Joonas Kesäniemi: Parlamenttisampo: eduskunnan aineistojen linkitetyn avoimen datan palvelu ja sen käyttömahdollisuudet. Informaatiotutkimus, vol. 40, no. 2, November, 2021. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen, Esko Ikkala, Mikko Koho, Jouni Tuominen, Toby Burrows, Lynn Ransom, and Hanno Wijsman: Mapping Manuscript Migrations on the Semantic Web: A Semantic Portal and Linked Open Data Service for Premodern Manuscript Research. Proceedings of the 20th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2021), Springer, October, 2021. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen: Sammon taontaa semanttisessa webissä (Forging Sampos on the Semantic Web). Tekniikan Waiheita, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 87-105, Tekniikan Historian Seura ry, July, 2021. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen, Petri Leskinen, Minna Tamper, Heikki Rantala, Esko Ikkala, Jouni Tuominen and Kirsi Keravuori: Biografiasampo yhdistää ja rikastaa suomalaiset elämäkerrat linkitettynä datana semanttisessa webissä (Biographysampo links and enriches Finnish biographies as linked data on the Semantic Web. Informaatiotutkimus, vol. 40, no. 3, June, 2021. In press. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen: Digitaalisten ihmistieteiden keskus HELDIG profiloi Helsingin yliopiston humanistisia aloja (Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanitites HELDIG Profiled Areas in Humanities at the University of Helsinki). Tieteessä tapahtuu, no. 1, Tieteellisten seurain valtuuskunta, February, 2021. bib pdf link

2020

Eero Hyvönen: Semantic Sampo Portals for Digital Humanities Based on a National Linked Open Data Infrastructure. 2020. White paper, Aalto University, Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo). bib pdf

Chris A. Sula, Kalani Craig, Michelle Dalmu, Alex Humphreys, Eero Hyvönen, Hannah L. Jacobs, Humphrey Keah, Joseph Kiplangat, Thea Lindquist, Nicholas Weber, Scott B. Weingart: Infrastructures of Digital Humanities. 83rd Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Annual Meeting, proceedings, Association for Information Science and Technology, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA, October, 2020. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen: Sampo Model and Semantic Portals for Digital Humanities on the Semantic Web. DHN 2020 Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries. Proceedings of the Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 5th Conference, pp. 373-378, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol. 2612, Riga, Latvia, October, 2020. bib pdf link

Eero Hyvönen: Tekoäly ja semanttinen web tarjoavat huikeat mahdollisuudet suurten aineistojen hallintaan. Kansallisarkiston strategia 2025, näkökulmia tulevaan (Jussi Nuorteva, Päivi Happonen (ed.)), pp. 20-21, Kansallisarkisto, Helsinki, May, 2020. bib link

Eero Hyvönen: Using the Semantic Web in Digital Humanities: Shift from Data Publishing to Data-analysis and Serendipitous Knowledge Discovery. Semantic Web, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 187-193, 2020. bib pdf