florsanders / collecting-culture-coghent

CoGent open data project built during the UGent course on Big Data Science

BDS project: Collecting culture

🛗 elevator pitch:

We present to you Collecting Culture: a dynamic guided sightseeing tour, tailored to your cultural interests. The Culture Tour app takes you on a trip through Ghent, visiting some of Ghent's most iconic historical and commercial locations, each of which is annotated with its relevance to your cultural interests & linked to relevant historical objects that can be found in Ghent's musea.

💡 canvases:

📊 pitch deck:

See pitch-deck.pdf or use this sharepoint link.

📽️ video demo:

• User story demo: https://youtu.be/AHTgOeuQyt4
• Feature overview: https://youtu.be/VgpwHMYDuvY

Project setup

# install npm dependencies
> npm install

# start frontend and backend server
> npm run dev

Project structure

Frontend

Collecting culture uses a Vue frontend in combination with Vuetify. The source code for the single page website can be found in client > src > views > Home.vue.

Frontend features include:

• Search feature for finding local business and art related to the entered keyword. Press the 'Search'-button or simply press enter on your keyboard.
• OpenStreetMap integration with the points of interest related to the entered keyword, focussed on Ghent. Appropriate icons display the resulting point of interests together with its name.
• List of results (loading icon while searching) with results from the CoGent linked open data dataset en Google Places API alternating. Only the top 5 places are listed.
• Dropdown with detailed information (description and image) about the found art result.
• Responsive design: smartphone, tablet and computer compatible.
• Minor features: address description of local businesses, 5-star reviews, number of reviews, link to CoGent website, etc.

Backend

Collecting culture backend can be found in the src folder of the repository. Both the CoGent linked open data dataset as well as the Google Places API are used to collect data and culture.

The API has a single route defined in bds.route.js which is handled by the corresponding controller (bds.controller.js). The controller makes use of the following services in order to fulfill its requests:

• locations: Makes use of the Google Places API to retrieve points of intrest in the city.
• coghent-poi: Retrieves information from four musea in Ghent (Huis Van Alijn, Stadsmuseum Gent, Industriemuseum and Design Museum Gent) by using the API calls described in the following subservices:
  • coghent-graphql-queries: Defines queries to the GrapqhQL API which also powers the data.collectie.gent website. This service reliably handles queries for basic search terms.
  • coghent-sparql-queries: Defines queries to the stad.gent SPARQL API as well as the wikidata.org SPARQL API. The goal of this service is to handle more complex search queries in the coghent dataset.
    Note: This service was only partially used due to technical issues with the API.

Datasets and APIs

• CoGent linked open data dataset - via data.collectie.gent graphql API
• City of Ghent SPARQL API
• Google Places API

FINISHED