Sampo Model, Data Services, and Series of Semantic Portals
This page presents the ”Sampo” model, series of
Linked Open Data services, and semantic portals (Hyvönen, 2022), 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 (Hyvönen, 2022) are explained in the keynote presentation at the DCMI 2021 conference below:
Paradigm Shift in Publishing Cultural Heritage Contents
The Sampo model, data services, 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 Series
The Sampo series of data services and semantic portals is listed below.
Table: Published and forth-coming semantic portals that have been implemented using the Sampo model (information updated 01/2023)
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 |
over 1 000 000 |
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 |
8200 |
6 552 629 |
Sampo-UI
|
University of Helsinki, Finland |
13. FindSampo |
findsampo.fi |
2021 |
Archaeology |
3200 |
1 008 720 |
Sampo-UI
|
Finnish Heritage Agency |
14. WarMemoirSampo |
sotamuistot.arkisto.fi |
2021 |
Video memoirs of WW2 veterans |
2000 |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
Tammenlehvän Perinnesäätiö ry |
15. LetterSampo projects |
LetterSampo Demonstrator |
TBA |
Early Modern Letters 1500-1800 (Republic of Letters) |
TBA |
2022 |
Sampo-UI
|
Huygens Institute, correspSearch, University of Oxford, archives in several countries |
16. ParliamentSampo |
parlamenttisampo.fi |
2023 |
Parliamentary data |
TBA |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
Parliament of Finland |
17. LawSampo |
lakisampo.fi |
2023 |
Legislation and case law |
TBA |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
Ministry of Justice, 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 |
20. OperaSampo |
TBA |
TBA |
Musical performances |
TBA |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
University of Art |
21. BookSampo, using Sampo UI |
TBA |
2022 |
Finnish fiction literature etc. |
TBA |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
Finnish public library consortium Kirjastiot.fi |
22. ConfermentSampo |
TBA |
TBA |
University traditions |
TBA |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
University of Helsinki |
23. ArtSampo |
TBA |
TBA |
Art collections |
TBA |
TBA |
Sampo-UI
|
National Gallery of Finland |
External portals |
1. BookSampo |
kirjasampo.fi |
2011 |
Finnish fiction literature |
1.1 million annual users (2021) |
8 700 000 |
None |
Drupal |
Finnish public library consortium |
2. Norske stadnamn |
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. |
4. KAVI RITVA portal |
TBA |
2023 |
National audiovisual archives, Finland |
Unknown |
834 000 000 |
Sampo-UI
|
Sofia Digital Ltd |
5. Golem Lab, EU project |
TBA |
2024 |
Golem Lab - Graphs and Ontologies for Literary Evolution Models |
Unknown |
Unknown |
Sampo-UI
|
University of Groningen, the Netherlands |
6. PM-Sampo, VU University and Wereldmuseum, the Netherlands |
TBA |
2025 |
Pressing Matter project |
Unknown |
Unknown |
Sampo-UI
|
VU University, Aalto University, and Wereldmuseum |
Related videos>
LetterSampo - Republic of Letters 1500-1800 on the Semantic Web
AcademySampo - Finnish Academic People 1640-1899
BiographySampo - Artificial Intelligence Reading Biographies for the Semantic Web
WarSampo - World War II on the Semantic Web
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
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.
2025
Eero Hyvönen, Petri Leskinen, Henna Poikkimäki, Heikki Rantala, Jouni Tuominen, Senka Drobac, Ossi Koho, Ilona Pikkanen and Hanna-Leena Paloposki:
LetterSampo Finland (1809–1917) Data Service and Portal: Searching, Exploring, and Analyzing Historical Letters and Their Underlying Networks.
Proceedings of ESWC 2025, supplement, poster and demo papers, pp. Accepted, forth-coming, Springer-verlag, 2025. Poster paper, submitted for review.
bib pdf
Eero Hyvönen, Petri Leskinen, Henna Poikkimäki, Heikki Rantala, Jouni Tuominen, Senka Drobac, Ossi Koho, Ilona Pikkanen and Hanna-Leena Paloposki:
Searching, exploring, and analyzing historical letters and the underlying networks: LetterSampo Finland (1809–1917) data service and semantic portal.
Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries (DHNB 2025). Book of Abstracts., 2025. Long papers.
bib pdf link
Eero Hyvönen, Annastiina Ahola, Petri Leskinen and Jouni Tuominen:
SampoSampo: A Portal for Studying Enriched Data and Semantic Connections on a Cultural Heritage Linked Open Data Cloud.
The Semantic Web: ESWC 2025 Satellite Events, Portoroz, Slovenia, June 1 - 5, 2025, Proceedings, Springer-verlag, 2025. Accepted, forth-coming.
bib pdf
Sarah Binta Alam Shoilee, Annastiina Ahola, Heikki Rantala, Eero Hyvönen, Victor de Boer, Jacco van Ossenbruggen and Susan Legene:
Enhancing Provenance Research with Linked Data: A Visual Approach to Knowledge Discovery.
The Semantic Web: ESWC 2025 Satellite Events, Portoroz, Slovenia, June 1 - 5, 2025, Proceedings, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2025. Forth-coming.
bib pdf
PM-SAMPO: Semantic Portal for Heritage Object Provenance Research.
The Semantic Web: ESWC 2025 Satellite Events, Portoroz, Slovenia, June 1 - 5, 2025, Proceedings, Springer-verlag, 2025. Accepted, forth-coming.
bib
Sarah Binta Alam Shoilee, Annastiina Ahola, Heikki Rantala, Eero Hyvönen, Victor de Boer, Jacco van Ossenbruggen and Susan Legene:
Enhancing Provenance Research with Linked Data: A Visual Approach to Knowledge Discovery.
Proceedings: SemDH 2025 Second International Workshop of Semantic Digital Humanities, co-located with ESWC 2025, Portoroz, Slovenia, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2025. Forth-coming.
bib pdf
2024
Annastiina Ahola, Lilli Peura, Rafael Leal, Heikki Rantala and Eero Hyvönen:
Using generative AI and LLMs to enrich art collection metadata for searching, browsing, and studying art history in Digital Humanities.
Proceedings, 2nd International Conference on Data & Digital Humanities Generative Artificial Intelligence for Text and Multimodal Data 12th - 13th December 2024, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal, November, 2024. Accepted, forth-coming.
bib pdf
Eero Hyvönen, Laura Sinikallio, Petri Leskinen, Senka Drobac, Rafael Leal, Matti La Mela, Jouni Tuominen, Henna Poikkimäki and Heikki Rantala:
Publishing and Using Parliamentary Linked Data on the Semantic Web: ParliamentSampo System for Parliament of Finland. Semantic Web, pp. Pre-Press, 1-23, November, 2024. DOI: 10.3233/SW-243683.
bib pdf link
2023
Mehwish Alam, Victor de Boer, Enrico Daga, Marieke van Erp, Eero Hyvönen and Albert Meroño-Peñuela:
Editorial of Special Issue on Cultural Heritage and Semantic Web. Semantic Web - Interoperability, Usability, Applicability, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 155-158, IOS Press, 2023.
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Eero Hyvönen, Laura Sinikallio, Petri Leskinen, Senka Drobac, Rafael Leal, Matti La Mela, Jouni Tuominen, Henna Poikkimäki and Heikki Rantala:
Plenary Speeches of the Parliament of Finland as Linked Open Data and Data Services.
Joint Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Knowledge Graph Generation From Text and the First International BiKE Challenge co-located with 20th Extended Semantic Conference (ESWC 2023), pp. 1-20, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 3447, August, 2023.
bib pdf link
Eero Hyvönen, Petri Leskinen, Laura Sinikallio, Senka Drobac, Rafael Leal, Matti La Mela, Jouni Tuominen, Henna Poikkimäki and Heikki Rantala:
ParliamentSampo Infrastructure for Publishing the Plenary Speeches and Networks of Politicians of the Parliament of Finland as Open Data Services. Aalto University, Dept. of Computer Science, February, 2023. Paper published at the publication event of the ParliamentSampo data service and portal.
bib pdf
2022
Telma Peura, Petri Leskinen and Eero Hyvönen:
What Linked Data Can Tell about Geographical Trends in Finnish Fiction Literature - Using the BookSampo Knowledge Graph in Digital Humanities. 2022. Abstract under peer review.
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Arttu Oksanen, Eero Hyvönen, Minna Tamper, Jouni Tuominen, Henna Ylimaa, Katja Löytynoja, Matti Kokkonen and Aki Hietanen:
An Anonymization Tool for Open Data Publication of Legal Documents.
AI4LEGAL-KGSUM 2022: Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Legal Documents and Knowledge Graph Summarization 2022, vol. 3257, pp. 12-21, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, August, 2022.
bib pdf link
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:
Linked Data Approach for Studying Parliamentary Speeches and Networks of Politicians in Finland 1907-2021 (long paper).
Digital Humanities 2022, Conference Abstracts, July 25-29, 2022 Online, Tokyo. Japan, University of Tokyo, pp. 254-257, ADHO, July, 2022.
bib link
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, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13384, pp. 163-167, Springer, July, 2022.
bib pdf link
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.
Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Knowledge Graph Generation From Text and the 1st International Workshop on Modular Knowledge co-located with 19th Extended Semantic Conference (ESWC 2022) (Sanju Tiwari, Nandana Mihindukulasooriya, Francesco Osborne, Dimitris Kontokostas, Jennifer D’Souza and Mayank Kejriwal (eds.)), vol. 3184, pp. 19-35, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, May, 2022. International Knowledge Graph Generation From Text (TEXT2KG).
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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, pp. 69-85, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 3133, May, 2022.
bib pdf link
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.
DHNB 2022 The 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference, pp. 415-423, CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 3232, March, 2022.
bib pdf link
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.
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2021
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.
The Semantic Web - ISWC 2021, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 12922, pp. 615-630, Springer, 2021.
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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. 3, pp. 216-244, November, 2021.
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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, pp. 346-368, November, 2021.
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2020
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.
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