This app can be installed to serve as a Questioning Authority (QA) Server for accessing external authorities. It is part of a larger architecture supporting linked data authority access. See [ld4l:linked_data_authorities]() for more information on the full architecture. From this app, you can send a search query and get back multiple results OR you can fetch a single term.
bundle install
rake db:migrate
rails s
To stop, use <ctrl><c>
in the terminal window where rails s
started.
There are a few authorities that are part of the QA gem. All directly access the external authority.
All authorities defined in ld4l-labs/linked_data_authorities are included in this repository. In your copy/fork of this app, you can remove the configuration and validation files for any authorities you do not want to support.
Configurations exist for a number of other common authorities that can be used by your QA Server. When possible, each configuration comes in two varieties...
Configurations define how to access an authority and how to decode the ontology predicates to extract and convert the data to normalized data. The predefined configurations live in qa_server/config/authorities/linked_data.
If you want to access an authority for which there isn't a configuration, you can write your own. There are only two requirements to be able to access an authority.
Instructions for writing your own configuration can be found in the (QA gem README). You are encouraged to use consistent names for common prameters, including the following...
Add your new configuration to this_app/config/authorities/linked_data
TEST QUERY: http://localhost:3000/qa/search/linked_data/_AUTHORITY_NAME__direct?q=your_query&maxRecords=3 TEST FETCH: http://localhost:3000/qa/show/linked_data/_AUTHORITY_NAME__direct/_ID_OR_URI_
Substitute the name of the configuration file for _AUTHORITY_NAME__direct in the URL. Substitute a valid ID or URI for _ID_ORURI in the URL, as appropriate. NOTE: Some authorities expect an ID and others expect a URI.
This search query... http://localhost:3000/qa/search/linked_data/oclc_fast/personal_name?q=Cornell&maximumRecords=3
will return results like...
[{"uri":"http://id.worldcat.org/fast/5140","id":"5140","label":"Cornell, Joseph"},
{"uri":"http://id.worldcat.org/fast/72456","id":"72456","label":"Cornell, Sarah Maria, 1802-1832"},
{"uri":"http://id.worldcat.org/fast/409667","id":"409667","label":"Cornell, Ezra, 1807-1874"}]
This term fetch... http://localhost:3000/qa/show/linked_data/oclc_fast/530369
will return results like...
{"uri":"http://id.worldcat.org/fast/530369",
"id":"530369","label":"Cornell University",
"altlabel":["Ithaca (N.Y.). Cornell University","Kornelʹskii universitet","Kʻang-nai-erh ta hsüeh"],
"sameas":["http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79021621","https://viaf.org/viaf/126293486"],
"predicates":{
"http://purl.org/dc/terms/identifier":"530369",
"http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#inScheme":["http://id.worldcat.org/fast/ontology/1.0/#fast","http://id.worldcat.org/fast/ontology/1.0/#facet-Corporate"],
"http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type":"http://schema.org/Organization",
"http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#prefLabel":"Cornell University",
"http://schema.org/name":["Cornell University","Ithaca (N.Y.). Cornell University","Kornelʹskii universitet","Kʻang-nai-erh ta hsüeh"],
"http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#altLabel":["Ithaca (N.Y.). Cornell University","Kornelʹskii universitet","Kʻang-nai-erh ta hsüeh"],
"http://schema.org/sameAs":["http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79021621","https://viaf.org/viaf/126293486"]}}
Validations come in two flavors...
The validations can be defined in a file with a matching file name in the scenarios directory. For example, direct access to the AgroVoc authority, access is configured in config/authorities/linked_data/agrovoc_direct.json and the validations are defined in config/authorities/linked_data/scenarios/agrovoc_direct_validation.yml
The UI for qa_server provides access to running connection validation and accuracy tests in the Check Status navigation menu item.
QA Server is based on the Questioning Authority gem. As such, it can be used to serve up controlled vocabularies defined in one of three ways.
This document addresses the use of QA Server app for access to linked data authorities. You can reference Questioning Authorities documentation for more information on the other uses.