TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK FOR VISUALISING THE SEMANTIC WEB

Abstract

Additions to the Semantic Web data in general domains such as news, movies, music,and books give non-expert users a chance to consume these kinds of data. Althoughthe general user can understand the content of the semantic web, they are still facedwith another problem in the form of the poor visualisation of current semantic webtools and a technical problem in terms of the use of these tools. We have thereforedesigned an evaluation framework based on the literature reviews with regard to informationvisualisation components and the semantic web background. This allows usto explore the state of the art in terms of visualisation tools for the Semantic Web andallows us to discover potential gaps which can extend the framework for the interactivevisualisation of the Semantic Web.The sixteen-visualisation tools that are active with regard to testing against the evaluationframework were selected. Based on characteristics of these tools, this thesisclassified them into four kinds of tools. These are Generic Browser, Search Engine,Exploration tool, and Mashup tool. The evaluation framework thereby addresses thecurrent trends with regard to these types of visualisation tools in terms of data accessing,visualisation techniques and interaction techniques. A basic assessment involvingtool testing in a simulated environment and using a test bed of semantic web datasources such as DBpedia and Musicbrainz, shows that there are limitations in the visualisationand interaction techniques of each visualisation tool. The current visualisationtools also lack data transformation and visual mapping processes in order to allowgeneral users to be able to present semantic web data effectively and easily withoutcustom coding.The evaluation results also illustrate that there are some visualisation tools that providea dynamic visual mapping process through a semi-automatic approach. We thereforebelieve that their architecture could be extended in such a way as to design a framework for an interactive visualisation tool for the Semantic Web. In order todesign a framework for a generic visualisation tool, we propose that future researchshould extend the architecture of the Exploration tool and the Mashup tool becausethese kinds of tools are somewhat similar to what we need as an ideal tool for generalusers. This thesis also presents some direction towards this proposal.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2013
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Carole Goble (Supervisor) & Stephen Pettifer (Supervisor)