ECHOLOT - a game changer for the MediaWiki community

The Horizon Europe project ECHOLOT (European Cultural Heritage Optimized Linked Open Tools) will be funded under the call "Leverage the digital transition for competitive European cultural and creative industries"

The talk will reveal what can become a game changer for the third party MediaWiki users, especially in the cultural heritage sector.

Talk by Bernhard Krabina (KMA Knowledge Management Associates) and Lozana Rossenova (TIB Technische Informationsbibliothek).

1. ECHOLOT
a game changer for the
MediaWiki community
Bernhard Krabina, KMA
Lozana Rossenova, TIB

2. 1
2
3
Agenda
20 years of Semantic MediaWiki
The ECHOLOT project
Outlook

3. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
▪aa

4. Semantic Wikipeda, 2006
▪Markus Krötzsch, Max Völkel, and Denny
Vrandečić. 2005. Wikipedia and the Semantic
Web: The Missing Links. In Proceedings of
Wikimania 2005 - The 1st International
Wikimedia Conference. Wikimedia
Foundation
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania0
5/Paper-MK2
▪WWW '06: Proceedings of the 15th
international conference on World Wide
Web, May 2006
https://doi.org/10.1145/1135777.1135863
▪Semantic MediaWiki was first released on 30
September 2005

5. 2007 – 2012
▪Semantic MediaWiki Plus (SMW+)
▪https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki_Plus
▪https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Halo

6. ▪Annotation
without
editing wiki
syntax

8. 2007: Page Forms
▪Structured editing
instead of annotating

9. 2009 - 2012: Wikidata
▪Eric Möller (CEO of WMF) was driving force behind the Wikidata idea
▪EU-project RENDER investigated handling of contradicting and
incomplete knowledge
▪Shortipedia: Denny Vrandečić, Varun Ratnakar, Markus Krötzsch, and
Yolanda Gil. 2011. Shortipedia: Aggregating and Curating Semantic Web
Data. Journal of Web Semantics 9, 3 (2011)
▪2012: development of Wikidata starts in Berlin (Wikimedia Germany)
with John Blad, Abraham Taherivand, Tobias Gritschacher, Henning
Snater, Jeroen De Dauw, Daniel Kinzler, Markus Krötzsch, Lydia
Pintscher, Silke Weber, Denny Vrandečić, Daniel Werner, Katie Filbert
and Jens Ohlig
▪See Wikidata: the making of https://doi.org/10.1145/3543873.3585579

10. 2010 – now: Semantic MediaWiki
EU projects partly supporting development of SMW include:
•SEKT – Semantically Enabled Knowledge Technologies
2004-2006
•NeOn – Lifecycle Support for Networked Ontologies
2006-2010
•ACTIVE – Enabling the Knowledge Powered Enterprise
2008-2011

11. SMW: 34 repositories
▪https://openhub.net/p/smw
https://github.com/orgs/SemanticMediaWiki/people
https://openhub.net/p/smw/users
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:SMW_Project

12. Aaron Schulz, Adam Shorland, Alex Winkler, Alexander Gesinn, Alexander Mashin, Alexlebek, Alistair3149, Amir E.
Aharoni, Amir Sarabadani, Ammar A., Andreas Kuckartz, Andrewok, Antoine Musso, Antonio Dell'Elce, a-tran,
Bernhard Krabina, bogota, Brad Jorsch, Brent Laabs, Brian Wolff , C. Scott Ananian, Chad Bentz, Charles Pigott,
Chris Koerner, Christian Zagrodnick, Cimarron Taylor, Cindy Cicalese, CJGarner, Dan Bolser, Daniel A. R. Werner,
Daniel Dobriy, Daniel Friesen, Daniel HerzigDaniel Linsley, Daniel Scherzer, Daniel Schuba, DannyS712 , Daren
Welsh, David Forgianni, David Mason, DengroWikibase, Dennis Groenewegen, Denny Vrandečić, Derick Alangi,
devmania, Doug Beeson, Douglas Gardner , Edward Chernenko, emwiemaikel Fabian Howahl, Fabrice Lécaudé,
Familiarguy, Felipe Schenone, Felix Kratzer, Fernando Correia, Florian, Fr Jeremy Krieg , Frank Dengler, Frank Ralf,
fredster33 , Func, Geoffrey Mon, Greg Rundlett, H. C. Kruse, HamishSlater, Hao Luo, Harugon, Hermann
Schwärzler, HgO, Hiroaki Kawai, Ike Hecht, Ioannis Protonotarios, Iván Hernández Cazorla, Jack Phoenix, Jaideraf,
James Hong Kong, James Montalvo, Jamie Thingelstad, Jan Böhme, Jan H. Höffler, Jan M. Simons, Jan
Schoonderbeek, Jayprakash, Jeroen De Dauw, Jie Bao, JL Troyen, Joel K. Pettersson, Joel Natividad, Johan
Goossens, Jörg Heizmann, Jude Jonassain, Kai Hüner, Karsten Hoffmeyer, Kazuhiro Kawaguchi, Kelly Bowles, Kim
Eik, KirillTEQ, Klaus Lassleben, Konrad Förstner, Kunal Mehta , kwji, Larry Gilbert, Leo Wallentin, Lin Zhang, Luke
Eversfield, Marcel Gsteiger, Marco Falda, Marijn van Wezel, Mark A. Hershberger, Mark Holmquist, Marko Ilic,
Marko991 , Markus Krötzsch, Markus Wagenhofer, Matt Yeh, Michael Scharpf, Mint Thompson, Mitchelln, Moritz
Schubotz, Morne Alberts, Nathan R. Yergler, nemobis, Nick Grandy, Nicolas Bazire, Nikita Rana, Niklas Laxström,
Nikolas Iwan, Nischay Nahata, Ori Livneh , Oyvind L. Gjesdal, Paladox, Patrick Nagel, Patrick Westerhoff, Pavel
Astakhov, Peter Grassberger, Pierre Rudloff, Piotr Jewłoszewicz, Piotr Sowiński, Raimond Spekking, Ralf
Krüdewagen, Raze Soldier, Remco de Boer, Richard Cyganiak, Robert Vogel, Robin van der Weil, S Page, Sam
Reed, Samuel Lampa, Scott Reed, Sebastian Schmid, Sébastien Beyou, Sergey Chernyshev, Sheep-y , Siebrand
Mazeland, Simon Heimler, Simon Stier, SomeRandomDeveloper, Stephan Gambke, Theaitetos, TheVins , Thiemo
Kreuz, Thomas Bleher, thomas-topway-it, Timo Tijhof, Tobias Matzner, Tobias Oetterer, Toni Hermoso Pulido,
Umherirrender, UnknownSkyrimPasserby, Vedmaka, Vincent Brooks, Welterkj, Wouter Rademaker, Yaron Koren,
Youri van den Bogert, Yuki Shira , Yury Kaktov, Yvar Ravy, Zoran Dori
THANK YOU ALL!

13. Managing data in MediaWiki
www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Managing_data_in_MediaWiki
Bucket
Data management
extension for power
users based on Lua
Data is stored in
buckets, which are
database tables with
specific columns that
you can define.
2022

14. Knowledge Graph?
Storage of dataMW
database,ElasticSe
arch, TripleStores
(incl. Blazegraph)
MW database,
Blazegraph
MW database MW database MW database
(MySQL only)
Properties flexible defined before
usage,
unchangeable
no properties, but
table fields
defined through
JSON-schema
defined through
Bucket
namespace
Queries parser function, API,
TripleStore (SPARQL)
API, TripeStore
(SPARQL)
parser function,
API
parser function,
API
via Lua functions,
API
Linking Data RDF, importing
ontologies
RDF, reusing
Wikidata
ontology
- - -
Knowledge Graph
would need RDF
or JSON-LD

would need RDF
or JSON-LD

would need RDF
or JSON-LD

15. 1
2
3
Agenda
20 years of Semantic MediaWiki
The ECHOLOT project
Outlook

16. Project Summary: ECHOLOT supports the adoption of the ECCCH by making the creation, reuse and
dissemination of high-quality, semantically rich and interoperable cultural heritage data accessible
to scholars and institutions of any size. The new end-to-end solution relies on knowledge graphs and open
source software (notably MediaWiki suite) for the application of the FAIR data principles and further
integration with Europeana, DS4CH, EOSC, and Wikidata. Using a combination of AI-, knowledge-, and
rule-based approaches, ECHOLOT delivers hybrid curation workflows that efficiently combine automated
processing and human input to perform multilingual and multimedia annotation, description generation,
and entity recognition. The service features easy-to-use interfaces and mechanisms for the detailed
capture and embedding of metadata to ensure correct attribution and management of value and
ownership in collaborative data generation processes. To ensure sustainability and impact, ECHOLOT
includes business model innovation, training, and community engagement, as well as close collaboration
with ECCCH stakeholders.
Funding by: HORIZON-CL2-2024-HERITAGE-ECCCH-01-03:
A European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage – Innovative tools for advanced data enrichment
Duration: 01.01.2026 - 31.12.2028 (3 years)
https://doi.org/10.3030/101233096
ECHOLOT – European Cultural Heritage
Optimised Linked Open Tools

17. •DARIAH-EU (FR)
•Austrian Academy of Sciences (AT)
•Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
•Institute of Literary Research; Polish Academy of Sciences (PL)
•Europeana Foundation (NL)
•Instytut Chemii Bioorganicznej Polskiej Akademii Nauk PAN (PCSS) (PL)
•Jozef Stefan Institute (SI)
•University of the Basque Country (ES)
•Professional Wiki GmbH (DE)
•Knowledge Management Associates GmbH (AT)
•University of Helsinki (FI)
•meemoo (BE)
•Australo (EE)
•takin.solutions (BG)
ECHOLOT – 15 Partners
Coordinator: TIB (DE)

19. ECHOLOT Vision

20. System architecture of ECHOLOT

21. 1
2
3
Agenda
20 years of Semantic MediaWiki
The ECHOLOT project
Outlook

22. Sponsor Semantic MediaWiki
https://www.semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Sponsorship

23. Semantic MediaWiki sponsors

24. 1
2
Let’s collaborate on the future of MediaWiki
applications!
Stay tuned, what the
ECHOLOT project will
bring!

25. Contact
Bernhard Krabina Lozana Rossenova
25
26
[phone]
[email protected]
linkedin.com/in/krabina
bsky.app/profile/krabina.bsky.social
mastodon.social/@krabina
[email protected]
linkedin.com/in/lozana-rossenova
post.lurk.org/@lozross