Wikidata:SPARQL query service/2016 SPARQL Workshop

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On September 8, 2016, the Wikimedia Foundation's Discovery and Research teams hosted an introductory workshop on the SPARQL query language and the Wikidata Query Service targeted at WMF Staff. The first part of the workshop was a series of presentations and tutorials: we're making the video and materials from this session publicly available.

Presentations

The complete video stream of the presentations is available on:

• Commons
• YouTube

Program

Intro: Dario Taraborelli

Welcome, introductions, logistics

Dario Taraborelli – Intro

Talk 1: Stas Malyshev

Overview of the Wikidata data model, SPARQL basics and WDQS features (e.g. visualization plugins) by example

Stas Malyshev – video

• slides
• Polestar demo screencast

Talk 2: Ruben Verborgh

Linked Data and federated queries are a match made in heaven: examples of federated SPARQL queries

Ruben Verborgh – video

• The future is federated (slidedeck of the complete talk)
• Federated query demos:
  • Artists born in San Francisco
  • Books in Harvard Library by people born in San Francisco
  • VIVO member organizations, with their DBpedia, WIkidata, VIAF identifiers and Commons image
    • rendered results

Break

(10 mins)

Talk 3: Tim Putman, Benjamin Good

Real-world examples from Gene Wiki: demonstrations of the kinds of biomedical queries we are working to enable through Wikidata.
Demo and a look under the hood of our developing model organism database web application using Wikidata as the backend, uploading data via WDQS.

Benjamin Good – video

Tim Putman – video

• slides

Guests speakers

• Ruben Verborgh, Ghent University and Linked Data Fragments
• Benjamin Good, Scripps Research Institute and Gene Wiki
• Tim Putman, Scripps Research Institute and Gene Wiki
• Lucas, @WikidataFacts

Hosts

• Dario Taraborelli, Wikimedia Research
• Stas Malyshev, Wikimedia Discovery

Recommended readings

• User:TweetsFactsAndQueries (aka @Wikidatafacts) put together a fantastic introduction to SPARQL, with plenty of real-world examples, that we strongly recommend you go over in preparation for the workshop.
• An overview of Wikidata's basic data structures: items (labels, descriptions, aliases) and statements (properties, qualifiers).
• A great video tutorial on WDQS by Navino Evans, cofounder of Histropedia