Surfacing scientific and financial data with the Xcel2RDF plug-in

Abstract

Given the astounding amount of data stored in spreadsheets and relational databases, a critical requirement for the evolution of the Semantic Web (SW) is the ability to convert data to SW compatible formats, such as RDF and OWL. The process by which data is transformed into RDF is known as triplification. This paper introduces Xcel2RDF, an MS Excel plug-in to support the triplification of spreadsheets, which minimizes the learning curve, as it is integrated into a widely used spreadsheet software tool. The plug-in is user-friendly, does not depend on the installation of additional software and does not require the user to leave his familiar environment, thereby avoiding problems reported as the major drawbacks of existing spreadsheet to RDF conversion tools. Finally, as a proof of concept, the paper illustrates how to use the tool to triplify statistical data. © 2012 IEEE.