Organizing Scientific Competitions on the Semantic Web

Abstract

Semantic web techniques for Linked Open Data (LOD) are expected to enhance the use of scientific data, and several data repositories for LOD have been launched. Modifiable “Forkable Open-source programs” on code sharing platforms make applications (Apps) utilizing data ready for reuse. In order to organize a web-based scientific competition, platforms for both semantic data resources and application programs need to be integrated so as to yield a creative cycle between data publication and application development. We developed the LinkData.org platform to integrate both data and application publishing platforms by recording dependency graphs, the utility of which we tested by organizing a scientific competition for synthetic biology on the platform. It was found that participants to the competition generated many dependency graphs by forking pre-existing applications or reusing schema of pre-existing datasets. These creative activities could not be observed explicitly without being recorded such as by dependency graphs among the datasets and applications on the platform. Hence we suggest a worldwide system needs to be established to record and harvest such dependency graphs from distributed data platforms and application-development platforms around the world, so that our intellectual and creative activities using open datasets for application development may be recorded properly.