The Open Semantic Framework (OSF) for Drupal is a middleware layer that allows structured data (RDF) and associated vocabularies (ontologies) to “drive” tailored tools and data displays within Drupal. The basic OSF for Drupal modules provide two types of capabilities. First, there are a series of connector modules such as OSF Entities, OSF SearchAPI and OSF Field Storage to integrate an OSF instance into Drupal’s core APIs. Second, there is a series of module tools used to administer all of these capabilities.

By using OSF for Drupal, you may create, read, update and delete any kind of content in a OSF instance. You may also search, browse, import and export structured datasets from an OSF instance.

OSF for Drupal connects to the underlying structured (RDF) data via the separately available open-source OSF Web Services. OSF Web Services is a mostly RESTful Web services layer that allows standalone or multiple Drupal installations to share and collaborate structured data with one another via user access rights and privileges to registered datasets. Collaboration networks may be established directly to distributed OSF Web Services servers, also allowing non-Drupal installations to participate in the network.

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

OSF for Drupal has dependencies on OSF Web Services, which means an operational OSF for Drupal website only requires access to a fully operational OSF instance.

For instance, you can check the Installing Core OSF (Open Semantic Framework) screencast to see how you can deploy your own OSF Web Services instance.

Installing OSF for Drupal using the OSF Installer

In this screencast, we will cover how to install OSF for Drupal using the OSF Installer command line tool.