VizCurator: A visual tool for curating open data

Abstract

VizCurator permits the exploration, understanding and curation of open RDF data, its schema, and how it has been linked to other sources. We provide visualizations that enable one to seamlessly navigate through RDFS and RDF layers and quickly understand the open data, how it has been mapped or linked, how it has been structured (and could be restructured), and how deeply it has been related to other open data sources. More importantly, VizCurator provides a rich set of tools for data curation. It suggests possible improvements to the structure of the data and enables curators to make informed decisions about enhancements to the exploration and exploitation of the data. Moreover, VizCurator facilitates the mining of temporal resources and the definition of temporal constraints through which the curator can identify conflicting facts. Finally, VizCurator can be used to create new binary temporal relations by reifying base facts and linking them to temporal resources. We will demonstrate VizCurator using LinkedCT.org, a ve-star open data set mapped from the XML NIH clinical trials data (clinicaltrials.gov) that we have been maintaining and curating for several years.