Pattern-based Access Control in a Decentralised Collaboration Environment

As the building industry is rapidly catching up with digital advancements, and Web technologies grow in both maturity and security , a data-and Web-based construction practice comes within reach. In such an environment, private project information and open online data can be combined to allow cross-domain interoperability at data level, using Semantic Web technologies. As construction projects often feature complex and temporary networks of stakeholder firms and their employees , a property-based access control mechanism is necessary to enable a flexible and automated management of distributed building projects. In this article, we propose a method to facilitate such mechanism using existing Web technologies: RDF, SHACL, WebIDs, nanopublications and the Linked Data Platform. The proposed method will be illustrated with an extension of a custom nodeJS Solid server. The potential of the Solid ecosystem has been put forward earlier as a basis for a Linked Data-based Common Data Environment: its decentralised setup, connection of both RDF and non-RDF resources and fine-grained access control mechanisms are considered an apt foundation to manage distributed building data.

@inproceedings{werbrouck_ldac_2020,
  author = {Werbrouck, Jeroen and Taelman, Ruben and Verborgh, Ruben and Pauwels, Pieter and Beetz, Jakob and Mannens, Erik},
  title = {Pattern-based Access Control in a Decentralised Collaboration Environment},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of LDAC2020 - 8th Linked Data in Architecture and Construction Workshop},
  year = {2020},
  month = jun,
  url = {https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeroen_Werbrouck/publication/342354922_Pattern-based_access_control_in_a_decentralised_collaboration_environment/links/5ef085dda6fdcc73be944024/Pattern-based-access-control-in-a-decentralised-collaboration-environment.pdf}
}