Linked Data, Solid and interoperable dataspaces
25 September 2025 – 18 December 2025
This course will dive into creating interoperability across multiple servers and organizations, on multiple levels. We will learn how to carefully reuse domain models where possible, and how to define your own terms where necessary, according to the latest state of the art in Linked Data. Solid applies Linked Data on personal data management: instead of having to store user data on your own servers, you can rely on a storage provider that speaks the Solid specification. Challenges that can be solved with Linked Data arise from the moment multiple apps read and write from the same storage. Techniques will be discussed to provide cross-app interoperability across open, shared, as well as personal knowledge graphs.
This course teaches you:- A basic understanding of Linked Data
- A basic understanding of Solid
- A basic understanding of semantic reasoning and streaming
- How to publish Linked Data
- How to set up the Community Solid Server
- How to create queries over Linked Data
- How to design and publish Linked Data vocabularies
- How to generate Linked Data from non-Linked Data using RML.io
- How to create interoperable Linked Data in Flanders and Europe
- How to create a Linked Data architecture using Linked Data Fragments and Linked Data Event Streams
- How to validate Linked Data using SHACL and ShEx
“People think RDF is a pain because it is complicated. The truth is even worse. RDF is painfully simplistic, but it allows you to work with real-world data and problems that are horribly complicated. While you can avoid RDF, it is harder to avoid complicated data and complicated computer problems”
Dan Brickley and Libby Miller.
With the support of VAIA.
The course is intended for anyone who has a good familiarity with computer science and who wants to learn more about Linked Data and Solid that they can directly apply in practice.
Participants have completed a higher education in computer science or have acquired equivalent experience.
Participants have programming experience with JavaScript/Typescript or a related programming language.
The number of participants is limited to 40.
To receive a certificate, one should attend all the lessons and succeed for the project.
Scientific Coordination
- prof. Pieter Colpaert, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- dr. Pieter Heyvaert, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
Teachers
- Pieter Bonte, Department of Information Technology, Ghent University
- Pieter Colpaert, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Ben De Meester, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Jitske De Smet, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Jonni Hanski, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Pieter Heyvaert, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Sitt Min Oo, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Femke Ongenae, Department of Information Technology, Ghent University
- Julián Rojas, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Ruben Taelman, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
- Ruben Verborgh, Department of Electronics and Information Systems, Ghent University
Programme
This first lesson gives an introduction of the concept of Linked Data, such as triples, vocabularies, URIs, blank nodes and so on. We explain the different Linked Data-specific serializations, such as Turtle, N-Triples, and JSON-LD. You learn how to create your own Linked Data through our hands-on exercises.
Teachers: Pieter Colpaert & Pieter Heyvaert
Date: 25 September 2025 (on campus)
In this class we explain how you use the RDF/JS data model. Next, we present libraries that use this model to create RDF in JavaScript. Finally, we explain how you publish this RDF over HTTP while taking into account caching, HTTP versions, compression, and content negotiation. During the hands-on exercises, you will use the RDF/JS data model directly and publish the RDF that you create with it. Teachers: Pieter Colpaert & Julián Rojas
Date: 10 October 2025 (online)
We will talk about Linked Data in Flanders with Open Standards for Linked Organizations and beyond. We also touch upon Linked Open Vocabularies and how you can use it. During the hands-on exercises, you learn how to apply content negotiation, reuse existing vocabularies, and how to create your own vocabulary manually.
Teachers: Pieter Colpaert & Julián Rojas
Date: 9 October 2025 (online)
In this class we introduce the specifications used within the Solid ecosystem, how WebIDs are related to OpenID Connect, and how to use Web Access Control and Access Control Policies to provide authorization for data in Solid pods. This is followed by a tutorial on the Community Solid Server. Finally, we briefly introduce the Community Solid Server Association and talk about the Solid Flanders community.
Teachers: Pieter Heyvaert
Date: 16 October 2025 (online)
We will explain how to query Linked Data (in Solid pods) using Linked Data Fragments, Linked Data Events Stream, SPARQL, GraphQL, and so on. Using this knowledge, we dive into the development of Solid apps. In the hands-on exercises you learn how to bring both the querying and the app development together.
Teachers: Ruben Taelman , Jonni Hanski & Jitske De Smet
Date: 23 October 2025 (online)
We will explain how to query Linked Data (in Solid pods) using Linked Data Fragments, Linked Data Events Stream, SPARQL, GraphQL, and so on. Using this knowledge, we dive into the development of Solid apps. In the hands-on exercises you learn how to bring both the querying and the app development together.
Teachers: Pieter Colpaert & Julián Rojas
Date: 6 November 2025 (online)
We will provide an overview of motivations and general goals of Data Space initiatives. In particular, we will visit in detail the available specifications and technologies that deal with Usage Control policies in the most prominent reference architectures. A real implementation case will be discussed by a guest lecturer from Athumi who will present the handling of authorization and usage policies in Flanders. Finally, we will do a hands-on exercise to define and enforce an example policy within a Solid-based data exchange scenario.
Teachers: Ruben Verborgh & Pieter Colpaert
Date: 13 November 2025 (online)
In this class we explain how you can generate RDF from non-RDF data sources using RML.io. We elaborate on how to create declarative rules to generate RDF using the RDF Mapping Language and YARRRML. During the hands-on exercises, you use RML.io on existing datasets to generate your own RDF.
Teachers: Ben De Meester & Sitt Min Oo
Date: 20 November 2025 (online)
In this class we explain how to create ontologies using standards such as RDFS, SKOS and OWL. Specifically, we elaborate on the ontology development process, the ontology life cycle, and the methodologies, tools, and languages for building ontologies. During the hands-on exercises you put these different concepts into practice.
Teachers: Femke Ongenae & Pieter Bonte
Date: 27 November 2025 (online)
In this class, you will learn how to handle dynamic data on the web in the form of data streams. The amount of data streams available on the web is ever-increasing and requires special processing techniques. We will explain how heterogeneous data streams on the web can be tamed using Stream Reasoning and in particular, RDF Stream Processing techniques. During the hands-on exercises, you will learn how to enable continuous query answering over dynamic data on the web.
Teachers: Pieter Bonte
Date: 4 December 2025 (online)
In this class we introduce the project that combines everything that you have learned in the previous classes.
Teachers: Pieter Heyvaert & Pieter Colpaert
Date: 11 December 2025 (online)
In the final class of this course, you present the outcomes of your project to your fellow students. This is followed by a discussion of the different outcomes across all projects.
Teachers: Pieter Colpaert & Pieter Heyvaert
Date: 18 December 2025 (on campus)
Practical info
Fee
The participation fee is 2.160 euro.
This includes tuition fee and online access to the live sessions and the digital e-learning environment with digital course notes.
Payment occurs after reception of the invoice.
All invoices are due in thirty days. All fees are exempt from VAT.
Reduction
- When a participant of a company subscribes for the complete course, a reduction of 20% is given to all additional subscriptions from the same company. In that case, only one invoice is issued per company.- Special prices for Ghent University staff. For further information, please send us an email.
Cancellation policy
Cancellation must be done in writing. Our cancellation conditions can be consulted on www.ugain.ugent.be/cancellationTraining vouchers
Ghent University accepts payments by KMO-portefeuille (www.kmo-portefeuille.be; authorisation ID: DV.O103194).Opleidingsverlof (VOV)
This course does not include enough contact hours to qualify for VOV.