SPARQLByE: Querying RDF data by example

Abstract

Semantic Web technologies such as RDF and its query language, SPARQL, offer the possibility of opening up the use of public datasets to a great variety of ordinary users. But a key obstacle to the use of open data is the unfamiliarity of users with the structure of data or with SPARQL. To deal with these issues, we introduce a system for querying RDF data by example. At its core is a technique for reverse-engineering SPARQL queries by example. We demonstrate how reverse engineering along with other techniques, such as query relaxation, enables our system, SPARQLByE, to guide users who are unfamiliar with both the dataset and with SPARQL to the desired query and result set.