Slides of the presentation of the paper at the International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE'21)

1. unsplash/RomanHuneau

2. unsplash-DanieleLevisPelusi
Background and Motivation

3. We live in a world surrounded by online data services
unsplash/Alfons Taekema

4. The Open Data Movement
unsplash/NASA
Promotion of free distribution of data for
everyone to consume and republish
Publishing Open Data sources released as
“web-friendly” artifacts to facilitate their
consumption by external applications
Citizens can monitor and control the action
of government bodies and organizations
WHAT
HOW
OPENAPI
CKAN ODATA
SOCRATA
Consuming Open Data sources is hard, and
regular citizens hardly benefit from them
PROBLEM

5. unsplash/DariaNepriakhina Unsplash/imgix
How to communicate
with them?
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6. unsplash/DariaNepriakhina unsplash/imgix
unsplash/JuriGianfrancesco
How to communicate
with them?

7. Chatbots to the rescue
unsplash/TinchoFranco
Intelligent conversational agents to automate
tasks and improve user experience
Users can ask questions or send requests to
the chatbot using natural language
WHAT
HOW
Model-based approach to generate
chatbots for specific Open Data sources
SOLUTION
Using chatbots as interface to access and
query Open Data sources
No need to learn any technical knowledge,
language or skill

8. unsplash-SvenMieke
Proposal

9. Our proposal

10. Importing Open Data APIs as Models

11. Importing Open Data APIs as Models

12. Importing Open Data APIs as Models

13. Importing Open Data APIs as Models

14. Importing Open Data APIs as Models

15. OPENDATA Profile
Set of stereotypes to represent
technical details required by the
chatbot to communicate with the
Open Data API
Importing Open Data APIs as Models
BOT Profile
Set of stereotypes to enable the
generation of conversational bots

16. Example
Transparency Portal from Catalonia Government
SOURCE
API
Surveillance network for pollution data
DESCRIPTION
The network registers the air quality in several
locations in Catalonia from 1991 until now. It is
updated daily
SPECIFICACION OVERVIEW
Defined following SOCRATA specification
It reports on air quality data at different locations
and addresses

17. Example
BOT Profile
OPENDATA Profile
Standard UML

18. Generating the Bot

19. Generating the Bot

20. Generating the Bot

21. Generating the Bot

22. Generating the Bot

23. Generating the Bot
DIRECT queries
Basic communication
GUIDED queries
Conversational approach
What was the pollution yesterday?
This is the data for yesterday…
Show me the air quality data
Do you want to apply a filter?
No, I won’t add filters
Alright! this is the data…
The user directly asks what is needed
Intents Filters Intents Filters Flow
The user converses with the bot and the request
is built as the conversation flows
Example: Example:

24. Generating the Bot
DIRECT queries
Basic communication
GUIDED queries
Conversational approach
What was the pollution yesterday?
This is the data for yesterday…
Show me the air quality data
Do you want to apply a filter?
No, I won’t add filters
Alright! this is the data…
The user directly asks what is needed
Intents Filters Intents Filters Flow
The user converses with the bot and the request
is built as the conversation flows
Example: Example:

25. Example

26. Example

27. Example

28. Tool Support

29. unsplash/glenn-carstens-peters
Conclusion

30. Conclusion
• Model-based approach to generate chatbots as user-friendly interfaces to query
Open Data sources published as Web APIs
• Support for direct and guided conversations
• Implemented as Eclipse plugin supporting SOCRATA, ODATA, CKAN, and OPENAPI
What we have shown
What we want to do next
Support for advanced queries
Composition of several Open Data sources
Chatbot generation for Open Data portals
Voice-driven chatbots
Additional types of data sources

31. Conclusion
• Model-based approach to generate chatbots as user-friendly interfaces to query
Open Data sources published as Web APIs
• Support for direct and guided conversations
• Implemented as Eclipse plugin supporting SOCRATA, ODATA, CKAN, and OPENAPI
What we have shown
What we want to do next
Support for advanced queries
Composition of several Open Data sources
Chatbot generation for Open Data portals
Voice-driven chatbots
Additional types of data sources

32. Thanks!
Except where otherwise noted, content on this presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Javier L. Cánovas Izquierdo
jcanovasi@uoc.edu
@jlcanovas
Hamza Ed-douibi
hed-douibi@uoc.edu
@mazamiz
Jordi Cabot
jordi.cabot@icrea.cat
@jordicabot
https://github.com/opendata-for-all/open-data-chatbot-generator
Gwendal Daniel
gdaniel@uoc.edu
@g__daniel