useful+tools

This page collates useful tools with a special emphasis on Linked Open Data / Semantic Web tools and other tools developed or used by this community ( [|W3C Semantic Web activity] / [|#odw13], [|@ISWC2013]) The tools covered here are not fully covered in the GovHack Developer Kit [] : the focus of this page is more on the data preparation phase, up to the creation of flexible APIs to access the data. There are tools like the [|Linked Data API] and [|Graphity] which can be used by Linked Open data publishers to offer access to linked data via APIs including JSON APIs (... the [|Linked Data Platform working group] is tackling the read/write requirements).
 * [|VisualBox]** is a handy tool for the quick development of mashups (with a range of visualisation options) - Developed by [|Alvaro Graves,] Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

Background on Semantic Web, Linked Data

 * Semantic University from Cambridge Semantics: [] Excellent resource for people just starting out.
 * Where can I learn about the semantic web? http://answers.semanticweb.com/questions/1/where-can-i-learn… .... this is also the site to go when you have specific questions
 * Some key conferences / workshops: [|LDOW 2013] [|COLD 2012] [|COLD 2013]
 * The 2013 International Semantic Web Conference was held in Sydney []
 * Semantic Web Challenge [|2012], [|ragld beta]

Linked Data guidelines (General, URIs)
[|W3C Gov Linked Data working group (GLD)] Best Practices for Publishing Linked Data [|Best Practices for Publishing Linked Data] (April 2013)

W3C Data on the Web Best Practices Working Group (DWBP WG) []

Guidelines for exposing data as RDF in Open PHACTS Working Draft 07 October 2013[| http://www.openphacts.org/specs/2013/WD-rdfguide-20131007/] and Latest editor's draft: [] and VoID Validator []

URIs
 * Phil Archer Study on Persistent URIs with identification of best practices and recommendations on the topic for the Member States and the European Commission [] which is an updated version of ISA D7.1.3 - Study on persistent URIs, with identification of best practices and recommendations on the topic for the MSs and the EC []
 * Revision of UK Public Sector URI Guidance - Summary of Survey Responses [] Version 1 12 Feb 2013 (Stuart Williams and Alexander Coley)

Datasets
 * What is a dataset []

Multingual Linked Data
 * Multilingual LOD resources []

Editors
Top Braid [] and Protege [] (comparison in [] )

RDF Editor (Notepad replacement for Turtle) []

Tools for (Linked) Data publishers (pre-processing, cleanup)
XLS-SPLIT []

recently advertised circa W3C Open Data on the Web Workshop [|http://www.w3.org/2013/04/odw/] (not tested)
 * Tabula (PDF to CSV) []
 * Tu rning Excel spreadsheets into nice XML: []

myGrid / simple-spreadsheet-extractor //Simply reads a XLS or XLSX spreadsheet document, and creates an XML or CVS representation of its contents// []

Data Extraction/Cleansing Tools
 * [|Google Refine] which is now OpenRefine [] and its [|RDF extension for Google Refine]
 * Downloadable tool "for working with messy data, cleaning it up, transforming it from one format into another, extending it with web services, and linking it to databases"

Tools for Linked Data publishers (triplification, linking, validation)
Extraction from structured sources to RDF []
 * Database to RDF
 * [|D2RQ] last version has an interesting new d2r-query script for command-line SPARQL querying
 * R2RML (perl) [|RDF-RDB2RDF]and [|SQLite Database to RDF Model] (perl)
 * R2RML (java) [|Db2Triples]
 * Excel or CSV2RDF
 * [|XLWrap] excel to rdf and [|comparison between Google Refine and XLwrap]
 * [|csv2rdf4lod]  (also [|for RDF Data Cube] )
 * [|TabLinker]Excel to RDF (by [|@] [|rinkehoekstra] Laurens Rietveld)
 * New approach CSV2RDF "server [] and [|https://github.com/earthquakesan/CSV2RDF-WIKI] (via [|Linked Data Cup] at I-Semantics 2013)
 * [|Jeni Tenison] Linked CSV [] and Linked-csv browser [] and URI Identifiers for the text/csv Media Type []
 * related: Proposal for a W3C Linked CSV working group []
 * Various to RDFTo be completed: RDF to RDF, RDF to JSON, SPIN ....
 * TripleGeo utility for converting geospatial data into triples []
 * Oskari [|https://github.com/nls-oskari] and [] via LGD workshop[| http://www.w3.org/2014/03/lgd/agenda] and []
 * RESTful service for coordinate conversion [|https://github.com/vienlam/Geo] via LGD workshop (Raphael Troncy, DataLift [|http://www.w3.org/2014/03/lgd/papers/lgd14_submission_57.pdf])
 * OGC WMS to RDF [] (XSLT) (related (big) MOSAIC [|project]/ [|open source software])
 * [|Shapefile to N3]
 * [|map4rdf]from [|GeoLinkedData.es]
 * SDMX to RDF
 * Linked SDMX []
 * [|ABS.Stat SDMX data] (GovHack 2013) [|converted to RDF Data Cube] with Linked SDMX by [|@laurentlefort] (may need some extra work (slice) to load it in [|CubeViz] )
 * Linking
 * SILK [] and []
 * SERIMI-RDF-Interlinking [] works with Virtuoso
 * Schema Matching by Utilizing Regular Expressions and Feature Extraction []
 * LogMap LogMap: Logic-based and Scalable Ontology Matching []
 * LIMES LInk discovery framework for MEtric Spaces []
 * Validation
 * Vapour @http://uriburner.com:8000/vapour
 * Jena Eyeball []

Linked Open Data vocabularies (Semantic Stats)
The most popular Linked Open Data vocabularies are listed in Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV) []
 * RDF Data Cube []
 * XKOS []
 * DDI-RDF Discovery [] and []
 * Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets (VoID) []

Examples of projects:
 * UK Bathing Water Linked Data [] one of the example discussed in W3C's [|Use Cases and Lessons for the Data Cube Vocabulary]
 * EuroStat Linked Data []
 * RDF Data Cube also used in []
 * CEDAR project [] //The triple store that ate the Dutch census// [] (ESWC 2013)

Tools for Linked Data publishers (storage and access to data)
Triple stores(2012 overview: [] )
 * Sesame[| http://www.openrdf.org/‎]
 * Virtuoso (version 7 (column store) has been released in 2013 [] - the majority of users have not yet switched from version 6 [] )
 * Ontotext OWLIM []

Triple stores with GeoSPARQL
 * Strabon [] and [|UsekM] a Sesame extension for GeoSPARQL (see also this [|doc])

Platform for building declarative SPARQL triplestore-backed Web applications.
 * ELDA Java implementation of the Linked Data API [] and PUELIA (PHP) []
 * And Epimorphics's " ELDA starter" []
 * Graphity []
 * LDP "implementations" [] (tools and products aiming to comply to the yet to be finalised Linked Data Platform specs)

SPARQL-DOC: generate documentation for SPARQL queries by @ldodds []

Dydra graph database in the cloud []

**Tools for Linked Data consumers**

SPARQL in R [] and associated [|Linked Science Tutorials]

Visualisation, Visual analytics

EU Data Forum 2013: Ghislain Atemezing: Towards Interoperable Visualization Applications Over Linked Data [|Slides] + [|Video]
 * [|VisualBox] a tool focused in allowing people to create visualizations using Linked Open Data //(Tip: run install.sh directly where it is located rather than as advised in the doc)//.
 * Sgvizler is a javascript which renders the result of SPARQL SELECT queries into charts or html elements @http://code.google.com/p/sgvizler/
 * SemMap for browsing geospatial datasets @http://aksw.org/Projects/SemMap.html
 * CubeViz The RDF DataCube browser @http://open-data.europa.eu/open-data/apps/cubeviz/  and @http://aksw.org/Projects/CubeViz.html
 * DataLift Deliverable 6.2: Tools for visualization From Raw Published Data to Interlinked Semantic Data @https://gforge.inria.fr/docman/view.php/2935/7977/D6.2-Web+toolkit-v1.2.pdf June 2012 (by winners of ISWC Semantic Web Challenge 2012) See also @https://gforge.inria.fr/projects/datalift/ and []
 * Commercially Empowered Linked Open Data Ecosystems in Research D 4.1 - Semantic Descriptions for Visual Analytics Components @http://code-research.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/D4.1-Semantic-Descriptions-for-Visual-Analytics-Components.pdf and @http://code.know-center.tugraz.at/static/ontology/visual-analytics.owl

SPARQL queries
 * [|Flint], TSO's experimental editor for SPARQL queries (based on [|CodeMirror]).
 * Yas GUI [] (presented at ESWV 2013)
 * SPARQL2NL [] and [] SPARQL queries to natural language
 * SPARQL Endpoints as a data source in Excel, without any plugins []

And Javascript? [|http://answers.semanticweb.com/questions/996/most-flexible-javascript-framework-for-working-with-rdf]

Resources for Linked Data consumers
Public SPARQL endpoints [] W3C's list of Currently Alive SPARQL Endpoints [] World Bank Linked Data []

Lists of tools
Projects and organisations (Linked Open Data)
 * Linked Data Stack [] maintained by LOD2 and GeoKnow projects
 * GeoKnow on GitHub []
 * The ** Open Data Institute ** [|list of Open Data Tools]
 * [|LOD 2 (lod2.eu) Technology Stack] ([|report]) - see also [|Linked Open Data:The Essentials - A Quick Start Guide for Decision Makers]
 * [|Linking Open Government Datawiki at RPI]
 * DataLift []
 * EU project on making open data accessible for researchers = Engage [] ( [|Reports] )
 * Mike Bergman's list []

Projects and organisations (Open Data)
 * OKFN list of [|software tools]
 * Code for America (Austin) incl. refs from [|Open Data day tools]
 * School of data resources []
 * [|Data Journalism Handbook (draft)] now available from [|datajournalismhandbook.org]
 * [|Open Data Handbook]

More tools (Open Data) Data Visualisation Tools
 * [|ScraperWiki] ([|@ScraperWiki]on twitter)
 * Online hosting of PHP/Python/Ruby that allows realtime collaborative editing and downloading of results in open formats
 * Good collection of scraping/file format libraries (also for use locally) for those programming languages including [|some Python tools] that allow you make a simple scraper just by "templating" a single page
 * [|Tableau Public]
 * [|Google Fusion Tables]
 * Simile Timeline [] and [|http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/]and []
 * <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">On github
 * @ ukodi []
 * @ldodds [] XLS-SPLIT, SPARQL-DOC
 * AKSW []
 * Data2Semantics []
 * Open PHACTS []
 * Sidewinder Labs []
 * @cgutteridge @https://github.com/cgutteridge?tab=repositories
 * Greg Kellogg []
 * @zbeauvais @https://github.com/beauvais?tab=repositories
 * @alexsdutton @https://github.com/alexsdutton?tab=repositories
 * @ whitehouse Project Open Data White House []
 * A viewer for Open Data sets stored in Github repositories. In progress via @Floppy - renamed as [] live version @http://github-data-viewer.herokuapp.com/