Semantic Computing Research Group SeCo

How to use a cloud of Cultural Heritage knowledge graphs in Digital Humanities research: SampoSampo - Connecting Everything to Everything Else

Invited Talk about research in Aalto and HELDIG at “DCMI 2026: Meaning-Driven AI: Using Metadata to Align Systems with Human Values” Conference, Aug 3-7, Seoul, South Korea

https://www.dublincore.org/conferences/2026/

Linked Open Data (LOD) can be published on the Semantic Web as semantic mark-up embedded in HTML documents or as Knowledge Graphs (KG) in SPARQL endpoints, on top of which applications are developed. KGs typically share the same entities, such as persons, organizations, and places, which means that the data in different KGs about the entities can complement (enrich) or contradict each other, if only we knew what entities are the same in different KGs. For this purpose, entity alignment systems are needed. Examples of such systems include, e.g., the Virtual Authority File VIAF.org of national libraries around the world, the international Linked Open Data Cloud, Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV), and Europeana. This talk presents a new data alignment service and semantic portal "SampoSampo - Connecting Everything to Everything Else" implemented on top of a cloud of 26 related Cultural Heritage (CH) KGs and systems in different CH domains, including biographies, genealogy, fiction literature, historical letters, art, military history, parliamentary discussions, and historical opera performances. The novelty of SampoSampo is to show in practise how a data alignment system can be used for five practical use-cases in Digital Humanities research (DH): 1) Using a LOD alignment service to enrich data in other Cultural Heritage LOD services and applications. 2) Providing global search, browsing, and data-analytic tools over a cloud of KGs. 3) Searching and checking data quality issues based on a cloud of KGs. 4) AI-based knowledge discovery in a LOD cloud based on relational search and Large Language Models. 5) Enhancing data literacy by data-analyses over a KG cloud. SampoSampo was published openly on the Semantic Web in January 2026.

Eero Hyvönen
Aalto University and University of Helsinki, Finland; Geneva Graduate Institute, Switzerland

Eero Hyvönen (https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/u/eahyvone/) is professor (emer.) of computer science at the Aalto University and director of Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG) (emer.) at the University of Helsinki. His research has focused since 2001 on developing the national semantic web infrastructure in Finland and its applications for Digital Humanities research.

More info about SampoSampo.fi:

https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/projects/ss/

SampoSampo: Connecting Everything to Everything Else - Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo) Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) has said: "Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else". This wisdom is very true regarding Cultural Heritage (CH) data due to its rich linkedness, and regarding Linked Open Data (LOD), where enriching data by linking is the great underlying pr...

Large National "Establishing the Digital History” Initiative in Japan 2025-2029

A historically large new Japanese national initiative “Establishing the Digital History” in Digital Humanities hold its second international conference in Tokyo. Lead by the National Institutes for the Humanities and National Museum of Japanese History, and Professor Makoto Goto, the project funds the work of 30-40 researchers and developers in different Japanese universities and memory organizations. An AI-generated summary of the project can be found below, while English home pages of the project are still under development.

I had the honour to present as the keynote of the conference related work in Finland: a summary of lessons learned in 2002-2026 at the Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo) of the Aalto University and University of Helsinki (HELDIG):

Digital Humanities on the Semantic Web:
from Infrastructure to Practical Applications, Data Analysis, AI-based Knowledge Discovery, and a Web of Wisdom

The talk is available as a video in YouTube

https://youtu.be/LNGsTwxpyU0?si=sHqpvwL9CdlWTWCg

and as PDF slides with links and full-text presenter notes:
https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/u/eahyvone/presentations/2026/2026-03-28-tokyo/hyvonen-keynote-tokyo-2026-03-28-final.pdf

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Summary of "Establishing the Digital History” generated by AI

"Establishing the Digital History" is a Japanese research project (2025–2029) funded as a Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas (A) and led by Principal Investigator Masashi Goto at the National Museum of Japanese History. The initiative focuses on applying advanced information technologies to historical research to redefine historical scholarship for the digital age.
Core Objectives and Scope
• Methodological Innovation: The project aims to develop new digital methods for analyzing historical data, moving beyond digitization toward constructing new forms of knowledge.
• Collaborative History: It envisions a shift toward historical research that is co-created with broader communities and diverse stakeholders.
• Regional Heritage Preservation: A key focus is the sustaining and communicating of local and regional heritage through technology.
• Interdisciplinary Approaches: It bridges traditional historiography with data engineering, Linked Open Data (LOD), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Context and Activities
• The project, often discussed in forums regarding humanities data infrastructure (such as a symposium in Tokyo on March 28, 2026), looks to integrate semantic technologies in historical study.
• It operates within the context of wider international developments in Digital Humanities (DH) and collaborates with leaders in Semantic Web research.
The project represents a shift towards a more inclusive, accessible, and technologically integrated understanding of history, aimed at strengthening the interaction between academic research and community heritage.

FINNISH LINKED OPEN DATA INFRASTRUCTURE FOR DIGITAL HUMANITIES IN DARIAH-FI GOES INTERNATIONAL

When the Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities HELDIG was established in 2016, one of the first tasks on our agenda was to start collaborations with the pan-European Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH) that “aims to enhance and support digitally-enabled research and teaching across the arts and humanities”. (https://dariah.eu)

As a result, the Aalto University joined DARIAH as a collaborative partner in 2016 and the University of Helsinki in 2017. Today, Finland is planning to join DARIAH on a national level as part of the DARIAH-FI/FIN-CLARIAH research infrastructure program (2022-2029), funded by the Research Council of Finland and EU:

https://dariah.fi

The role of the Semantic Computing Research Group (SeCo) at the Aalto University and HELDIG in DARIAH has been building a Linked Open Data (LOD) infrastructure, including ontology services, LOD services, the Sampo cloud of interlinked DH applications, and re-usable open source tools and data for application development:

https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/projects/fin-clariah/

Two new papers related to our mission have now been accepted to be presented at the DARIAH Annual Meeting 2026, May 26-29, in Rome, Italy.

The first paper [1] presents the new declarative version of the Sampo-UI framework that can be used for extremely rapid development of semantic portals on top of virtually any SPARQL endpoint on the Web with seamlessly integrated data-analytic tools for DH research. In addition to over 20 Sampo portals in use in Finland, Sampo-UI has now been used in a dozen of international projects, and the Sampo-UI developer group is extending beyond Finland in EU.

The second paper [2] presents a new international infrastructure and Sampo system of the Geneva Graduate Institute, Center for Digital Humanities and Multilateralism (CDHM), Switzerland. Here the Finnish Sampo model and Sampo-UI were re-used successfully to publish and study the assembly minutes, prosopography, and activities of the League of Nations (1920-1946), the predecessor of the United Nations. In this “Minutes of Multilateralism” project, the Finnish in-use application “ParliamentSampo – Parliament of Finland on the Semantic Web” of the DARIAH-FI infrastructure was re-used and adapted for publishing assembly minutes of international organizations instead of parliamentary speeches. This work continues next to cover General Assembly Minutes of the United Nations and those of the Inter-Parliamentary Unit (IPU).

[1] Heikki Rantala, Annastiina Ahola, Esko Ikkala, Eero Hyvönen: Applying the Sampo-UI Framework for Searching and Visualizing Linked Open Data (abstract). Proceedings of DARIAH Annual Meeting, May 26-29, 2026, 2026. Pre-print: https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/publications/2026/rantala-et-al-sampo-ui-dariah-2026.pdf

[2] Eero Hyvönen, Petri Leskinen, Alexandre Lionnet, Blandine Blukacz-Louisfert, Pierre-Etienne Bourneuf, Davide Rodogno, Grégoire Mallard, and Florian Cafiero: A Linked Open Data Infrastructure for Studying Historical Activities of International Organizations: First Results on the League of Nations (1920-1946) (abstract). Proceedings of DARIAH Annual Meeting, May 26-29, 2026, 2026. Pre-print:https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/publications/2026/hyvonen-et-al-lon-infra-2026.pdf