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Artsdata Guidelines about the schema:sameAs property
Along with @id property, the schema:sameAs property offers another excellent means of unambiguously identifying Things in Schema structured data.
Artsdata recommends populating the sameAs property with a persistent identifier, in URI format. Always enter persistent identifiers in full URI format (rather than entering just the identifier’s string). For example, for the short-form Wikidata ID Q596774, the matching URI is http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q596774.
Artsdata strongly recommends persistent identifiers from open knowledge bases and authority files (see the list of supported identifiers), because they are machine-actionable: Artsdata can dereference these URIs to access all available descriptive metadata about the entity they identify.
The sameAs property can be used on both top-level objects and nested entities. In the following example, the sameAs property is populated both for the top-level Event type entity, and for entities nested under the location, organizer and performer properties.
{
"@context": "https://kg.artsdata.ca/context.jsonld",
"@type": "Event",
"@id": "https://scenesfrancophones.ca/id/6130",
"sameAs": "http://kg.artsdata.ca/resource/K43-1002",
"name": "Maten - Utenat",
"url": "https://scenesfrancophones.ca/spectacles/maten-utenat-6130",
"startDateTime": "2025-05-01T19:30:00-03:00",
"location": {
"@type": "Place",
"@id": "https://scenesfrancophones.ca/id/467",
"name": "Théâtre Gilles-Laplante",
"sameAs": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q117093397",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "300, chemin Beaverbrook",
"addressLocality": "Miramichi",
"addressRegion": "NB",
"postalCode": "E1V 1A1",
"addressCountry": "CA"
},
},
"description": "Le groupe innu Maten est originaire de Mani-Utenam, sur la Côte Nord du Québec...",
"image": "https://scenesfrancophones.ca/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2024-07/Maten%20-%20Sf.png?itok=qjWZfzae",
"organizer": {
"@type": "Organization",
"@id": "https://scenesfrancophones.ca/id/37",
"name": "Carrefour communautaire Beausoleil",
"sameAs": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q133105414"
},
"performer": {
"@type": "PerformingGroup",
"@id": "https://scenesfrancophones.ca/id/6108",
"name": "Maten",
"sameAs": [
"https://isni.org/isni/0000000491339041",
"http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q112681868"
]
}
}
It is possible to populate several sameAs values for the same entity. In the previous example, under performer property, the entity named “Maten” has an array of sameAs values (delineated by square brackets) containing both an ISNI URI and a Wikidata URI. This is however not necessary. In most cases, a single Wikidata or VIAF URI is enough, since it can be dereferenced to retrieve several other persistent identifiers.
Social media and streaming platforms’ accounts may also be populated under sameAs. Again, this may not be necessary: if the entity is already identified with a Wikidata URI (or an Artsdata URI linked with a Wikidata URI), any robot can dereference the Wikidata URI to retrieve all social media and streaming platform accounts associated with this entity in Wikidata. In other words, if these accounts are listed in Wikidata, listing them under sameAs would be redundant from a machine standpoint.