Applying the Semantic Web: The VICODI Experience in Creating Visual Contextualization for History

Semantic Web applications in the humanities that visualize knowledge are
still few and far between. The Visual Contextualization of Digital Content
(VICODI) project brought together Semantic Web technologies with the
concepts of contextualization and visualization of knowledge, an approach
which we term visual contextualization. The goal was to enhance users
understanding of digital content in the domain of history. It succeeded
in doing this by creating an ontology-based web portal of European
history where extra historical knowledge or context is added to resources
and visualized through textual hyperlinks and interactive Scalable Vector
Graphics historical maps. VICODI also created a history-specific ontology.
In this article the novel approach of visual contextualization is introduced
in conjunction with a detailed explanation of the core elements of the
VICODI portal. The article also addresses several of the problems
encountered in developing a Semantic Web application for a humanities
domain.