Using WYSIWYM to Create an Open-ended Interface for the Semantic Grid

Central to the vision of the Semantic Grid is the adoption of metadata and ontologies to describe resources, to promote and enhance collaboration (De Roure et al., 2005). This raises the question of how such metadata comes into existence. Ideally the users should create it themselves, which raises the issue of how a scientist should create RDF. In our work in the area of e-social science, we aim to support social scientists in their research, using (Semantic) Grid technologies. For this, a tool is needed that facilitates easy creation of RDF by non-experts, to enable researchers to deposit and describe their own data. We believe that, for social scientists, natural language is the best medium to use, as the way they conduct their research and the structure of their documents and data indicate that they are more oriented towards text than graphics.