Expressing uncertainty in cultural heritage knowledge hubs: Applications in Wikibase instances from the German humanities NFDI consortia

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Expressing uncertainty in cultural heritage knowledge hubs: Applications in Wikibase instances from the German humanities NFDI consortia Lozana Rossenova1, Lucia Sohmen1, Florian Thiery2 04.11.2025 1 TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, Hannover; 2 CAA e.V. 10.5281/zenodo.17517929 CHNT30 2025 | Vienna, Austria In the interdisciplinary field of Cultural Heritage, research data is dispersed across heterogeneous and distributed repositories 2 Florian Thiery & Andreas Noback, CC BY 4.0 ●Wikibase is a free and open-source system for managing linked open data collections ●Released and maintained by Wikimedia Germany - supported by a large international community ●Continuity for users used to Wikidata ●Suitable for cultural and research organizations to customize according to the needs of their collections Wikibase instances as knowledge hubs? What is Wikibase? Integrating Wikibase infrastructures is important 4 Mtrognitz, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons A view of the Wikimedia Linked Open Data web. Credit: Dan Shick (WMDE) CC-BY-SA 4.0 Use Case NFDI4Culture Wikibase4Research services NFDI4Culture: Task Area 1 GitLab WebVOWL Data model for NFDI4Culture What initials are on this Meistersiegel? ●H.H.? ●H.K.? ●Something else entirely? Problem: Not all research results are facts More open approach used by Factgrid More compact approach suggested by CIDOC-CRM Vocabulary for degrees of uncertainty vs Options ●Uncertainty about dates is enabled by EDTF (Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) created by the Library of Congress with the participation and support of the bibliographic community as well as communities with related interests); ●A custom extension for Wikibase is needed to use this, i.e. it’s not available in Wikidata or other Wikibases by default; Use Case at the TIB: Meistersiegel Wikibase Expressing uncertainty for owners: ●qualifiers indicate degree of certainty with controlled vocabulary: ○“high”, “low” or “unknown” ●ranked statements (used as visual aid for users); ●use of “unknown value” where appropriate; Use Case at the TIB: Meistersiegel Wikibase Use Case Georeferencing and Spatial Uncertainty fuzzy-sl Wikibase & Wikidata The huge question on uncertainty and ambiguities … 20 Mainz “Roman” Mainz Mainz after WW II Mainz ~1900 “Medieval” Mainz ? Mainz geonames:2874225 Mainz: administrative division geonames:2874226 Mainz: inhabited place iDAI.gazetteer:2052457 Mainz (inhabited place) pleiades:109169 Mogontiacum ? fuzzy-sl Wikibase Modelling Scheme 21 CM GLM Florian Thiery CC BY 4.0 Wikidata [Q130529871] 22 Florian Thiery, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 via http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q130529871 fuzzy-sl Wikibase [Q74] 23 via https://fuzzy-sl.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Item:Q74 Florian Thiery, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 24 Federating between Wikidata (to get external IDs), FactGrid (to get related people and inscriptions), and Fuzzy Spatial Locations (fuzzy-sl) to get coordinates* https://sparql.dblp.org/YKIrP3 Open Street Map Contributors, ODbL *NB: Not possible to ask full questions though, due to limited SPARQL functionalities THX to Lozana !!! Approximately 40,000 years before present, the largest eruption of the Campanian Ignimbrite occurred in the Phlegraean Fields. 25 Florian Thiery & Fiona Schenk, CC BY 4.0 Samian Research Findspots in London & Southwark (London Borough) 32 London (Londinium) / Shadwell (Docks) Southwark Southwark / London Bridge Southwark / Southwark Bridge London (Londinium) / No. 1 Poultry London (Londinium) via https://tinyurl.com/27vxj99y Samian Research Findspots in London (Londinium) 33 Samian ID: 14264 Potter/Die: Abitus (Habitus); 1a Site: London (Londinium) Findspot: - - - Pleiades ID: 79574 WGS84: 51.512790 -0.091840 Samian ID: 16902 Potter/Die: Albanus ii; 1b Site: London (Londinium) Findspot: No. 1 Poultry Pleiades ID: 79393 WGS84: 51.512790 -0.091840 Samian ID: 133992 Potter/Die: Severianus i; 7a Site: London (Londinium) Findspot: Shadwell, docks Pleiades ID: 79393 WGS84: 51.512790 -0.091840 LEIZA / Samian Research Findspots from London in the fuzzy-sl Wikibase 34 NFDI4Objects Temporary Working Group 35 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14893826 Thank you! Questions? Dr Lozana Rossenova Open Science Lab, TIB [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-5190-1867 Lucia Sohmen Open Science Lab, TIB [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-2593-8754 Florian Thiery M.Sc. Research Squirrel Engineers Network [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-3246-3531