Sprecher
Beschreibung
Extended metadata describing experimental context and provenance are becoming increasingly important alongside primary datasets. However, their adoption remains limited due to the technical complexity of storing, querying, and managing semantic data.
Within the NFDI4Cat initiative, several triplestore solutions were evaluated based on a set of defined requirements [1]. Apache Jena Fuseki [2] was selected as a lightweight, standards-compliant backend that integrates well with the NFDI4Cat software ecosystem [3], but its minimalistic interface provides limited support for dataset exploration and metadata inspection, creating a barrier for researchers without expertise in semantic technologies.
To bridge this gap, we developed a lightweight, user-friendly RDF Uploader that enables intuitive management of datasets and graphs, supports the upload of RDF and other Fuseki-compatible serialisation formats (e.g., Turtle, OWL, JSON-LD), and provides full CRUD operations on the triple store without manual endpoint configuration or SPARQL query formulation. In addition, the integration of WebVOWL [4] enables interactive exploration of ontology graph structures, while interoperability with tools such as TRIQ [5] ensures a seamless transition from metadata creation to semantic storage and subsequent use.
To support practical research scenarios, the application provides automated ingestion of RDF serialisation formats into a Fuseki-based triple store with user- and institution-specific storage paths; ontology graph visualisation with WebVOWL for schema-level analysis; template-based SPARQL querying with predefined and user-modifiable templates that allow data exploration without SPARQL knowledge; and flexible search scopes across user-level and institution-level graphs.
The tool was validated on a test triple store populated with real catalysis-related metadata, demonstrating consistent querying, reusable templates, and effective schema-level inspection through visualisation.
The presented approach shows how harmonised semantic metadata can be translated into actionable research workflows using lightweight, user-centric tools. The RDF Uploader lowers the complexity of semantic infrastructures and supports digitalisation and FAIR adoption within the NFDI4Cat community.
| Alternative Track | 8. Semantics in Practice: Domain & Application Ontologies |
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