Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Illusions of Grandeur:
Trust and Belief in Cultural Heritage
Linked Open Data
University of Birmingham & Trinity College Dublin
Digital Humanities Network Lecture Series: Trust and Authority in the Digital Age
Tuesday 25th of May, 2021
Robert Sanderson
Director for Cultural Heritage Metadata
Yale University

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Overview
• Linked Open Data?
• Trust what was said?
• Sustainability, Diversity, Usability
• Trust it was said?
• Digital Signatures, Web Archiving
• Trust what it means?
• Ontologies, Vocabularies and Profiles, oh my!
• Conclusion: Trust is SHARED

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Disclaimers!
• Not a sociologist or psychologist
• Not a cryptographer
This talk is:
• Reflections on observed behavior
• In the context of information theory and practice

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Disclaimers!
• Not a sociologist or psychologist
• Not a cryptographer
This talk is:
• Reflections on observed behavior
• In the context of information theory and practice
• And probably all wrong :)

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
So … Linked Open Data?
• The Web of Data
• Institutions publish data on the web, just like web pages
• At URLs under their domain name
• The data uses shared standards
• We’ll come back to these at the end
• The data has references to other bits of data
• … Published by the same institution
• … Published by other institutions

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Linked Data: Who is Involved?
• Researcher (user / data consumer)
• Client Software Engineer
• Publisher (institution making data available)
• Content Specialist
• Data Modeler
• Software/Data Engineer
• Standards Publishing Institutions
• Editors & Contributors

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Basic Interaction Model

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
“Trust” in the Data?
• Accuracy: Does the data correctly represent the state of the
real world for the things it describes? (Objective)
• Certainty: Belief of the Publisher as to the extent of the
accuracy of the data. (Subjective)
• Utility: Belief of the Researcher that the data is useful for
fulfilling their current information need. (Subjective, time-
specific)

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Data Accuracy, Certainty and Utility

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Uncertain, Accurate, Useful
https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/76913

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Certain, Inaccurate, Not Useful
https://search.library.yale.edu/catalog/1781761 (now corrected)

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Certain, Inaccurate, Not Useful
Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake_Edwards

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Relations between Actors
• Confidence: Belief of the consumer in the current and past
competence of the publisher (accuracy of data)
• Trust: Belief of the consumer in the current and future
benevolence of the publisher (availability of accurate data)
• Dependence: When one actor relies on another for the
successful outcome of a critical function

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Confidence and Trust

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Certainty of … Institution?
?

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Certainty of Content Specialists

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Data Published by Technical Specialists

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Personal or Institutional Trust?
• Trust: From the reputation of the Institution
including by considering confidence over time
• Data: Created by actions & expressing the beliefs of
many Individuals over time
Linked Open Data is relatively new
Our trust in the institution likely predates the LOD
Should our trust be in the People,
not the Institution?

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust: Availability of the Data
Benevolence:
Continuing to make accurate data openly available
Sustainability:
• Data must be a Product, not a Project
• Needs continued investment in people and tech
• Data must have Internal and External Impact
• Must be demonstrably useful to the organization
• And to others

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Persistence requires Sustainability
• Institutional Longevity
• Established organization more likely to continue to
exist and retain its focus
• More likely to have heard of it in the past
• Institutional Resources
• Well funded organization more likely to continue to
invest in the product

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Persistence requires Sustainability
• Appropriate Product Governance
• Balancing internal / external participation
• Balancing recognition of institution / individuals
• Balancing quantity / quality
• Balancing accuracy / usability
• Ensuring diversity …

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust: Similarity
People tend to view the actions of other members of groups
with which they identify (in-groups) more favorably than
those of members of groups with which they do not.
Even when the action is identical.
We are more likely to trust organizations that seem to share
similar missions, constituencies or worldviews to our own.
Summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Similarity/Diversity Paradox
Cultural Heritage is diverse, spanning all human activity.
Fully understanding that heritage requires systemic diversity,
both at institutional and individual levels.
We are conditioned to trust those that are most similar to us,
where we should be trusting those that are most diverse.

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Structuring Data is a Political Act
with Ethical Implications
https://lincsproject.ca/events/lincs-conference-2021/
• Information systems enact systems of power
• All data are contextual, discursively produced, and
historically contingent
• There are many different kinds of knowledge, and ways to
come to know things
-- Erin Canning, LINCS Project
(Linked Infrastructure for Networked Cultural Scholarship)

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Illusions of Grandeur
• Similarity, Impact, Longevity and Resourcing: Reputation
• Governance, Internal Impact, Diversity, People: Invisible
We base our usage of data on
the illusory grandeur of the
organization, which has nothing
to do with the data itself

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Linked Data: Who is Involved?
• Researcher (user / data consumer)
• Client Software Engineer
• Publisher (institution making data available)
• Content Specialist
• Data Modeler
• Software/Data Engineer
• Standards Publishing Institutions
• Editors & Contributors

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Client Developer

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Usability
The data must be usable by a software engineer
implementing an application’s user interface,
in order to be presented to the researcher.
The user of the data is the application developer
The researcher experiences the data only through
the lens of the developer’s application

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Utility is Judged through the Application

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Perceived Utility depends on Data
Usability

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Utility is Judged through the Application

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Perceived Utility depends on Data
Usability

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust External Impact Perceived
Utility

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Design Patterns for Usability
1. Scope design through shared use cases
2. Design for international use
3. As simple as possible, but no simpler
4. Make easy things easy, complex things possible
5. Avoid dependency on specific technologies
6. Use REST / Don’t break the web
7. Separate concerns, keep APIs loosely coupled
8. Design for JSON-LD, using LOD principles
9. Follow existing standards & best practices, when possible
10. Define success, not failure (for extensibility)
https://iiif.io/api/annex/notes/design_patterns/, https://linked.art/api/1.0/principles/

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust that it was Said?

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Don’t Fear the Network
• Trust that the data will be delivered when requested
• = Data Availability
• Trust that the data will not be modified en route
• = Data Integrity
Baseline Assumptions:
• Deliver data from own domain via HTTPS
• Confidentiality is not a concern (data is open)

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
I know … Blockchains!
https://www.hyperledger.org/blog/2018/04/19/lessons-learned-from-hyperledger-fabric-poc-projects

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
More simply…

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Linked Data Signatures
Important aspect of blockchain is the signature of the data:
• Mathematical proof of data integrity in an untrusted
communication channel
• Any change to the data changes the signature
Linked Data Signatures are coming in the W3C
But they’re also unnecessary for our use cases…
https://w3c.github.io/lds-wg-charter/explainer.html

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Web Archiving
Public archiving of open data:
• Trusted third party to ensure integrity and availability
• Many CH organizations already engaged with web
archiving, for digital preservation purposes
• Allows “time travel” through different versions
• Across multiple archives
• Memento / IETF RFC 7089
http://mementoweb.org/guide/, esp. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MIC.2012.78

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Ensuring Completeness: Harvestable
How do we ensure that all of the data is archived?
Need to know:
• What data exists?
• When does it change?
Solutions:
• OAI-PMH
• ResourceSync
• Activity Streams IIIF Change Discovery
https://iiif.io/api/discovery/

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Separating Accuracy and Accessibility

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust what the Data Means?
How can the researcher be sure that their
understanding of the information is what was
intended by the content specialist?

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust what the Data Means?

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
App Developer Needs to Understand
Model

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
… Via a Shared Standard

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Standards Need Same Considerations as
Data
If the standard conveys the meaning, how do we trust the
standard?
• Sustainable products with governance and institutions
• Archived, versioned and harvestable
• Usable by data modelers and developers
• Useful to content specialists and researchers
• Diversity of institutions and people, in every role

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
• Conceptual Model
• Abstract way to think about the world,
holistically, consistently and coherently
• Ontology
• Shared set of terms to encode that thinking
in a logical, machine-actionable way
• Vocabulary
• Curated set of sub-domain specific terms,
to make the ontology more concrete
encodes
refines
Model
Ontology
Vocabulary
Abstraction Standards

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
encodes
refines
specialized by available by
Model
Ontology
Vocabulary
Profile
API
Implementation Standards
A Profile is a selection of
appropriate abstractions,
to encode the scope of
what can be described.
An API is a selection of
appropriate technologies,
to give access to the data
managed using the profile.

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Example: Linked Art
• Model: CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model
• Ontology: RDF encoding of CRM 7.1, plus extensions
• Vocabulary: Getty AAT, plus minimal extensions
• Profile: Art Museum oriented
(but dips toes in adjacent domains)
• API: JSON-LD format with
10 primary divisions of content
See: https://linked.art/

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
… Via Shared Standards

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Trust is SHARED
Trustable data and standards are:
• Sustainable (necessary for ongoing use)
• Harvestable (back-up plan & ease of access)
• Available (online with clear usage license)
• Reconciled (entities linked across systems)
• Enhanced (incorporates others’ knowledge)
• Diverse (institutions, people, practices)

Trust
and
Belief
in
Linked
Open
Data
robert.
sanderson
@yale.edu
@azaroth42
Thank You!
Comments, Criticism and Questions all Welcome
Robert Sanderson
Director for Cultural Heritage Metadata
Yale University
robert.sanderson@yale.edu