Rainy Day Stuff: Semantic Web Videos

There is often no substitute for learning about subjects than from the key practitioners and thinkers behind them. Even though one noted researcher in this field, Hamish Cunningham at the University of Sheffield, a specialist in human language technology (HLT), does sometimes cite the low 5% retention of information from a lecture, I am finding repeated viewings and rewinds to be a pretty effective way to learn:

[The original Learning Pyramid analysis traces back to the 1960s and is now attributed to the NTL Institute; the actual picture is from Dr. Tom Bayston at the University of Central Florida. It would be interesting to know whether repeated viewings of online videos, or simultaneous video + Powerpoints act to increase retention. (Actually, blogging about something may be at the higher end of retention within the Learning Pyramid.) I'm also finding that the combination of video/slides with the audio explanations to be immensely helpful.]

Nonetheless, I have previously reported on some great online Semantic Web videos, for example, one by Henry Story and another by Tim Berners-Lee, and faced with a rainy day I tried to be more comprehensive in my discovery.

I found many distribution points, but was most taken with a series of video tutorials and training sessions from SEKT (Semantically-enabled Knowledge Technologies), a three-year, EU-sponsored project that ends at the end of 2006.

SEKT – Online video presentations. SEKT offers 19 different ones; some with syncrhonized slides or alternatively slides (PPTs) separately. My three favorites (block out four hours!!!) are:

• Web Seminar: OWL - Frank van Harmelen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands 1 hr 2 min 14 min
• Information Extraction – Ronen Feldman, Bar-Ilan University, Israel 1 hr
• Human Language Technology for the Semantic Web – Hamish Cunningham, Kalina Bontcheva, Diana Maynard, Valentin Tablan, University of Sheffield, UK 2 hrs 37 min

Besdies these, here are some other good intro to advanced videos that you can watch off the Web:

• A Sporting Gentlemen’s Guide to the Semantic Web – Ben Hammersley’s 2004 talk at Reboot
• Knowledge Representation and the Semantic Web – Google engEDU 56 min 8 sec – Jan 25, 2006
• RDF – Connecting Software and People – Sun Microsystems 30 min 27 sec – Mar 14, 2006
• Spire: Semantic Web for Ecoinformatics – UMBC ebiquity research group 8 min 13 sec – Feb 15, 2006
• Semantic Web – A Concise Introduction Rudi Studer University of Karlsruhe, Germany 23 min 14 sec
• Semantic Web Technologies: Challenges and OpportunitiesKarin Breitman webcastisandtcolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov
• mita- semantic-web.wmv 13:37

So, wait for that rainy day, grab some hot chocolate, and enjoy!

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