Rhizomer is a framework that aims to improve human interaction with the semantic web by separating HTML content and semantic metadata in a wiki system. It uses a simple wiki engine to manage HTML documents and a semantic metadata engine called Rhizomer to manage metadata about the wiki documents or other resources. Rhizomer provides a guided tour interface and forms to enable non-experts to easily view, query and edit semantic metadata using only a web browser. Future work will focus on improving interaction through AJAX and assisted metadata creation and specialised visualisation services.

1. Improving Human-Semantic Web Interaction: The Rhizomer Experience Roberto García and Rosa Gil GRIHO - Human Computer Interaction Research Group Universitat de Lleida, Spain

2. Table of Contents Introduction Proposal Architecture Wiki Engine Rhizomer Guided tour Conclusions Future Work

3. Introduction Scenario: semantic portal Framework for community knowledge sharing Non-expert users User interaction not just consumption , also production Follow Semantic Wiki style: Facilitate production Keep information organised

4. Introduction However, most Semantic Wikis… Mix human and machine-oriented content Quite unusable notation for HTML content and/or semantic metadata [[Category:ResearchProject]] [[label:=Rhizomer]] [[homepage:=rhizomik.net/rhizomer]] Require user aware of available classes, props,… Difficult reuse of external data and ontologies More usable approaches: PlatypusWiki, OntoWiki,…

5. Proposal Focus on simplicity and ease of use : Separate HTML content and semantic metadata Simple wiki engine WYSIWYG wiki user interface Semantic metadata engine Usable semantic metadata interaction Common HTML interface , just the web browser

6. Architecture Wiki Engine : manage HTML documents Rhizomer : manage semantic metadata, about wiki docs or other resources URL URL URL URL RHIZOMER WIKI ENGINE link link # anchor link link

7. Wiki Engine Simplicity : Based on Java Servlets / JSPs / JavaScript No database required Store documents as HTML files Ease of use : FCKEditor, http://www.fckeditor.net WYSIWYG interface, text processor like Customisable user interface E.g.: add custom special chars

8. Wiki Engine

9. Rhizomer Simplicity : Abstraction layer on metadata stores (Sesame, Jena,…). REST interface Implementation Java Servlets JSP Metadata Store Rhizomer GET PUT POST DEL search new edit delete

10. Rhizomer Ease of use : Facilitate discovering unknown metadata SPARQL DESCRIBE for default queries Web browser interface for semantic metadata Graph browsing mechanism Enable “self-explanatory” metadata RDF <HTML/> <HTML/> SemFORMS JavaScript

11. Guided Tour: query

12. Guided Tour: query GET swrc:Project specific properties

13. Guided Tour: store Rhizomer servlet: GET  query SPARQL metadata store Jena, Sesame,… DESCRIBE implementation Concise Bounded Description + rdfs:labels for all selected resources Query output also RDF

14. Guided Tour: store DESCRIBE R2 : build CBD( R2 ) = Fragment 2 U rdfs:labels label R2

15. Guided Tour: response Show results: Visualisation and interaction: XSLT : RDF to HTML RDF to HTML FORM Other options : Fresnel Lenses, RDF Path,… Use RDF labels for usability, xml:lang for multilanguage support.

16. Guided Tour: interaction view, RDF2HTML XSLT view , RDF2HTML XSLT <swrc:SoftwareProject rdf:about=&quot;http://rhizomik.net/rhizomer&quot;> <rdfs:label>Rhizomer</rdfs:label> <swrc:homepage rdf:resource= &quot;http://rhizomik.net/content/rhizomer&quot;/> <rdf:type rdf:resource=“&swrc;ResearchProject&quot;/> </swrc:SoftwareProject> <rdf:Description rdf:about=“&swrc;homepage”> <rdfs:label>homepage</rdfs:label> </rdf:Description>

17. Guided Tour: interaction

18. Guided Tour: interaction Submit semantic form: <form method=“ PUT/POST ” onSumbit=“build Metadata ”> <input type=“text” name=“ http:// ...w3.org/.../rdf-syntax-ns# ID ” value=“ http://rhizomik.net/rhizomer ”/> <input type=“text” name=“http:// ...w3.org/.../rdf-syntax-ns# type ” value=“ http:// swrc…org/ontology# SoftwareProject ” /> <input type=“text” name=“http:// ...w3.org/.../rdf-schema# label ”/ value=“ Rhizomer ”/ > … </form> PUT : add metadata fragment POST : delete metadata fragment for ID and add new metadata <Subject,… Predicate,Object> Predicate,Object>

19. Conclusions Usable framework (preliminary user tests) Simple and flexible Example: Semantic Media Portal

20. Future Work AJAX to improve user interaction Assisted metadata creation: available properties, property values,… Specialised visualisation and interaction services Map for geo-tagged resources, Timeline or Calendar for events,… Deeper user testing

21. Thank you for your attention More at: http:// rhizomik.net Contact [email_address] [email_address]