ExConQuer: Lowering barriers to RDF and Linked Data re-use

Abstract

A major obstacle to the wider use of semantic technology is the perceived complexity of RDF data by stakeholders who are not familiar with the Linked Data paradigm, or are otherwise unaware of a dataset’s underlying schema. In order to help overcome this barrier, we propose the ExConQuer Framework (Explore, Convert, and Query Framework) as a tool that preserves the semantic richness of the data model while catering for simplified and workable views of the data. With the aim of encouraging and enabling further re-use of Linked Data by people who would otherwise shy away from this task, this framework facilitates the publication and consumption of RDF in a variety of generic formats. In this manner, any stakeholder can export and work with RDF data in the formats they are most accustomed with, radically lowering the entry barrier to the use of semantic technologies, and possibly enabling the exploitation of Linked Data to its full potential. Through the ExConQuer Framework we provide a comprehensive set of tools that enable users to easily query linked datasets, download the results in a number of formats, and re-use previously-executed queries and transformations. With this framework we hence attempt to target the evident niche in existing tools that are intended to be used by non-experts to consume Linked Data.