conStruct

mkbergman - May 20, 2009 - 15:29

conStruct is a middleware layer that allows structured data (RDF) and associated vocabularies (ontologies) to "drive" tailored tools and data displays within Drupal. The basic conStruct module provides CRUD (create - read - update - delete), search, browse and some import and export capabilities for structured datasets.

conStruct connects to the underlying structured (RDF) data via the separately available structWSF Web services framework. structWSF is a RESTful Web services layer that also allows multiple conStruct and Drupal installations to share and collaborate structured data with one another via user access rights and privileges to registered datasets. Collaboration networks can also be established directly to distributed structWSF servers, also allowing non-Drupal installations to participate in the network.

conStruct can also act as a linked data platform. With Drupal's other emerging RDF capabilities, content generated by Drupal can be ingested by structWSF and managed via conStruct tools, including the publication and exposure on the Web of linked data with query and Web service endpoints.

The conStruct module is distributed directly from the Drupal site. Also, a home Web site describes the entire conStruct structured content system in more detail.

Besides structWSF, conStruct also has dependencies on a few additional open source packages, including the Virtuoso RDF triplestore and the Solr faceted, full-text search engine. An installation guide for structWSF and these supporting tools and packages may be obtained from the OpenStructs community Web site.