Preparing Data for Display in Prez

prez #fuseki #prezui

When loading your data into a triple store for display in Prez there are some steps that you can take in preparation to make the experience as smooth as possible.

The following steps describe the recommended way to prepare your data for loading to into the Prez system.

Arrange the data into two folders.
1. data and metadata
  
  The data and metadata folder is all the RDF that makes up your dataset. This includes resource definitions, containers, collections, vocabularies, ontologies, catalogs, etc. It is the data that you actually want to load into the Prez system.
  
  This folder can have subfolders to logically group the data. The important part is just to seperate the main data from any required annotations or background data (discussed in the next bullet point).
  
  Typically, you would have a hierarchy of resources, such as for a vocabulary
```
dcat:Catalog
    ⤷ (dcterms:hasPart) skos:ConceptScheme
        ⤷ (skos:hasTopConcept) skos:Concept
```
  The data and metadata folder should contain declarations and definitions for all these resources.
2. background annotations
  
  The background folder contains labels and descriptions for resources that are referenced but not defined in the data you want to load. For example, you may have be using the made up dog ontology to declare that
```
dog:fifi dog:tailWaggingStyle "vigorous" .
```
  But you haven't -and have no intention of- defining a label for the dog:tailWaggingStyle predicate. In this case, the label is defined externally (in the dog ontology) and we just need to include the label so that the predicate can be displayed neatly in Prez, but we don't need to include the whole ontology.
  
  In this case a declaration such as
```
dog:tailWaggingStyle rdfs:label "Tail wagging style" .
```
  Should be added to the background annotations folder.
  
  NOTE
  Prez includes some annotations out of the box. You can see which annotations are included by checking here.
  
  These annotations are taken from the semantic background. A public repository of annotations for most of the major public ontologies.
  
  IMPORTANT
  The reason for separating out the annotations like this is so that you can feed them into a tool like Labelify as 'context' when checking for missing labels. It also allows you to easily load background data into a separate named graph which is often a useful strategy.
Validate the data

It's always a good idea to ensure that the data is valid before trying to load it. This will save time and catch errors early.

There are a selection of tools available that can be used to validate RDF data. For an easy to use web based validator, check out SHACL Validator. It can be used to check if your RDF is syntactically valid, and enforce that your data conforms that any SHACL rules that may apply. Note that if no SHACL shapes are provided then the tool will just validate the RDF.
Check for missing labels

As mentioned above when loading data into Prez it is important to ensure that all resources are properly annotated, otherwise they cannot be rendered nicely in the UI.

To see which labels are missing from your data you can use Labelify. An online RDF labelling tool that can help you easily identify any missing labels.

Remember that Prez includes annotations for most major ontologies out of the box, so you don't need to include those again.
Complete

You should now be able to load data into Prez and have it nicely presented. For troubleshooting and common gotchas check the FAQ.

FAQ

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