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Smeagol: A “Specific-to-General” Semantic Web Query Interface Paradigm for Novices

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Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6860))

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Abstract

Most Semantic Web query interfaces let the user give an abstract specification of the desired results (perhaps using facets, or a natural language query.) We introduce the Smeagol visual query interface which, by contrast, guides the user from a specific example to a general result set. Users begin the query process with navigation and exploration activities, building a concrete subgraph of interest from the larger data set. They then generalize this subgraph to find other subgraphs similar in some way to the one identified. Among other advantages, this approach also lends itself quite naturally to querying on instance-based data; i.e., triples in which the predicate is not part of a defined ontology. We provide an analysis of this specific-to-general approach, contrasting it with existing systems. We also present the results of a usability experiment comparing novices’ use of Smeagol with that of a standard Linked Data browser.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA, 22401, USA

    Aaron Clemmer & Stephen Davies

Authors
  1. Aaron Clemmer
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  2. Stephen Davies
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), Paul Sabatier University, 118, route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse Cedex, France

    Abdelkader Hameurlain

  2. Brigham Young University, 784 TNRB, 84602, Provo, UT, USA

    Stephen W. Liddle

  3. Software Competence Center Hagenberg and Johannes-Keppler-University Linz, Softwarepark 21, 4232, Hagenberg, Austria

    Klaus-Dieter Schewe

  4. School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, 4072, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Xiaofang Zhou

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Clemmer, A., Davies, S. (2011). Smeagol: A “Specific-to-General” Semantic Web Query Interface Paradigm for Novices. In: Hameurlain, A., Liddle, S.W., Schewe, KD., Zhou, X. (eds) Database and Expert Systems Applications. DEXA 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6860. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23088-2_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23088-2_21

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-23087-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-23088-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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