Motivation: Why Mobile LD?
Mobile devices and the concept of ubiquitous computing are becoming increasingly accepted in today's high-tech societies. As this is still a growing field, there is much benefit to be gained by enabling applications that can consume structured data from the web (e.g. via the Linked Open Data cloud) and combine that information with contextual information coming from device sensors (e.g. Global Positioning System information). Additionally, novice mobile app developers no longer have to spend hours if not days learning the intricacies of app development platforms in order to develop a useful app. Frameworks such as ours, where one can drag and drop components to create an app that can run on the Android systems, are gaining traction. Punya, which is built on top of the App Inventor platform, includes several components that abstract linked data concepts into reusable application resources to ease development of mobile applications that automatically and transparently (to the app user) consume and produce linked data. In this tutorial we will introduce the platform and guide participants through example apps. We will describe the different functionality provided by Punya and give participants exercises at the end of each session that consists of completing a skeleton app by adding the previously discussed function. By the end of the tutorial, participants will be comfortable with developing mobile Linked Data apps without further guidance from us.
Overview
Participants need no prior experience or knowledge of mobile application development, although basic knowledge of Linked Data concepts will be useful to follow the tutorial. Participants should come equipped with their own laptops, especially for the latter half of the tutorial. We will also provide a limited number of phones to try out the apps developed to get the real look and feel on a physical device. However, we encourage the participants to use their own android development phone and a USB cable (if they have one) as our supplies may be limited.
- The first half of the tutorial will be dedicated to presenting the platform and introducing the functional components for consuming and generating Linked Data. Participants will be given skeleton apps and be asked to complete them for each function.
- The second half will be dedicated to hands-on exercises that use these components. The participants will be asked to form small teams and develop their own mobile applications, and the presenters will help them with any issues they come across.
Detailed Agenda
| 9:00 - 10:30 | Session I: Introduction to Punya |
| 10:30 - 11:00 | Coffee break |
| 11:00 - 12:30 | Session II: Consuming LD |
| 12:30 - 2:00 | Lunch break |
| 2:00 - 3:30 | Session III: Generating LD |
| 3:30 - 4:00 | Coffee break |
| 4:00 - 5:30 | Session IV: Consuming streaming LD |
Tutorial Materials
TBA
Organizers
- Weihua Li, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Julius Adebayo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Lalana Kagal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology