ARTSDATA.CA

A national knowledge graph for the arts.

Artsdata.ca aims to empower the Canadian arts sector to actively promote a more fair and equitable digital ecosystem. This initiative is building a linked open data knowledge graph of the arts that is open and accessible to all.

About Artsdata

Vision

Build a knowledge graph that is open, accessible and community sourced. Under the stewardship of stakeholders from a diversity of organizations, Artsdata.ca is uniquely focused on the Canadian arts sector. The objectives are to:

Create an essential digital resource that reflects the values of the arts
Build a substantial web of linked open data of arts-related information
Provide high-quality data that is comprehensive and up to date

Benefits

The Artsdata.ca knowledge graph enables the arts sector to:

Gain knowledge, agency and control of descriptive metadata about events, persons, organizations and venues
Streamline the circulation of arts events to listings sites, recommenders and other search engines by programmatically sharing event metadata
Optimize the use of the latest web technologies to generate new opportunities

Activities

Promote a common data model for cultural information about the performing arts, taking advantage of existing ontologies where possible
Onboard cohorts of Canadian arts organizations to include their descriptive metadata in Artsdata.ca
Increase the breadth and quality of the Artsdata.ca knowledge graph by adding data from a variety of sources
Create a library of global identifiers for events, places, persons, organizations and works in the Canadian arts sector
Link to other knowledge sources like Wikidata; leverage the use of existing global identifiers and linked open data with the goal of creating a substantial web of data

Want to know more?

Find out about the Artsdata data model's classes and properties. Provide feedback and ask questions.

Data model documentation

Add your events to Artsdata.ca

Need to add structured data to your events?

To structure your events, add JSON-LD or RDFa structured data to your web pages. Make sure to follow Google's guidelines, as well as Artsdata's templates. You will need technical expertise and access to your website backend.

Structure my own events

Already have structured data for events?

Let us know so we can add your events to Artsdata.ca.

Other Resources

Partners

Artsdata Community Group

The Artsdata Community Group acts as a governing body for Artsdata.ca and defines priorities for its development through monthly meetings. The group includes a diversity of stakeholders from the Canadian arts sector, ranging from open data providers to consumers to service organizations.

As of March 2024, members include Association RIDEAU, CAPACOA, Culture pour tous, Culture Laval, Culture Outaouais, the Government of New Brunswick, the National Arts Centre, Synapse C, and La Vitrine. Non-voting members include Culture Creates and LaCogency. If you are interested in joining the Artsdata community group, please contact emilie.frenette@capacoa.ca.

Other Supporters

Culture Creates is a small team of arts professionals and technologists specialized in RDF-based knowledge graphs and linked open data for the arts. Their mission is to make information on what’s happening in the arts compatible with an AI-powered world.

Artsdata.ca has nearly 100 data providers across Canada. These include participants in digital discoverability cohorts led by the Linked Digital Future Initiative and dia-log, as well as more than associations, networks, unions and other service organizations.

See the list of data sources.

Past Supporters

From 2017 to 2022, Executive Director Sherrie Johnson (Crow’s Theatre) actively stewarded (with several arts organizations across the country) the Artsdata.ca initiative through successive multi-phase grant applications.

From 2018 to 2023, CAPACOA’s Linked Digital Future Initiative contributed to the development of Artsdata, of Wikidata and of the broader linked open data ecosystem for the performing arts.

Supported by

Funded by the Government of Canada.