Building knowledge maps of Web graphs

Abstract

We research the problem of building knowledge maps of graph-like information. There exist well-consolidated cartographic principles and techniques for mapping physical landscapes. However, we live in the digital era and similarly to the Earth, the Web is simply too large and its interrelations too complex for anyone to grasp much of it through direct observation. Thus, the problem of applying cartographic principles also to digital landscapes is intriguing. We introduce a mathematical formalism that captures the general notion of map of a graph and enables its development and manipulation in a semi automated way. We present an implementation of our formalism on the Web of Linked Data graph and discuss algorithms that efficiently generate and combine (via an algebra) regions and maps. We present the MaGe tool, implementing the map framework, and discuss examples of knowledge maps.