Release of an intuitive query system for DBpedia

Dear all,

We are pleased to announce the availability of a prototype tool that gives
non-experts an easy way to generate complex queries over DBpedia's data.
The system uses GoRelations, a research system that uses statistical data
about lexical semantics and RDF datasets to generate plausible SPARQL
queries from a user's intuitive query.

Our motivation is to help non-experts by providing a better way to explore
and query LOD resources like DBpedia. Using SPARQL requires not only
mastering its syntax and semantics but also understanding the RDF data
model, the ontology used by the DBpedia, and URIs for entities of interest.
Natural language question answering systems solve the problem, but these
are still subjects of research.

GoRelations is a compromise allowing non-experts to specify a graphical
“skeleton” for a query and annotate it with freely chosen words, phrases
and entity names. The combination reduces ambiguity and allows us to
reliably produce an interpretation that can be translated into SPARQL.

You are welcomed to try our system at http://gor.ebiq.org and read about it
at http://ebiq.org/j/95. Please send feedback, comments or questions to
gorelations@googlegroups.com.
Thanks,

Lushan Han
PhD student at UMBC