Sampo-UI: A Full Stack JavaScript Framework for Developing Semantic Portal User Interfaces

Submitted by Esko Ikkala on 11/17/2020 - 22:20

Tracking #: 2631-3845

Authors: 
Esko Ikkala
Eero Hyvonen
Heikki Rantala
Mikko Koho

Responsible editor: 
Tania Tudorache

Submission type: 
Tool/System Report
Abstract: 
This paper presents a new software framework, Sampo-UI, for developing user interfaces for semantic portals. The goal is to provide the end-user with multiple application perspectives to Linked Data knowledge graphs, and a two-step usage cycle based on faceted search combined with ready-to-use tooling for data analysis. For the software developer, the Sampo-UI framework makes it possible to create highly customizable, user-friendly, and responsive user interfaces using current state-of-the-art JavaScript libraries and data from SPARQL endpoints, while saving substantial coding effort. Sampo-UI is published on GitHub under the open MIT License and has been utilized in several internal and external projects. The framework has been used thus far in creating five published and six forth-coming portals, mostly related to the Cultural Heritage domain, that have had tens of thousands of end-users on the Web.
Full PDF Version: 
PDF icon swj2631.pdf
Previous Version: 
Sampo-UI: A Full Stack JavaScript Framework for Developing Semantic Portal User Interfaces
Tags: 
Reviewed

Decision/Status: 
Accept

Solicited Reviews:
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Review #1
By Peter Haase submitted on 25/Dec/2020
Suggestion:
Accept
Review Comment:

This is a comment to the revised submission following my previous review.
My comments have been fully addressed in the revised version.
In my view, also the comments of the other reviewers have been addressed.
I therefore recommend accepting this version.

Review #2
Anonymous submitted on 28/Dec/2020
Suggestion:
Accept
Review Comment:

This manuscript was submitted as 'Tools and Systems Report' and should be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Quality, importance, and impact of the described tool or system (convincing evidence must be provided). (2) Clarity, illustration, and readability of the describing paper, which shall convey to the reader both the capabilities and the limitations of the tool.

Authors have strongly improved the paper and all the major issues mentioned in the first round of reviews were addressed.
The Use Case section has been reduced in favor of a more extended description of the UI
components.
The Abstract has been rephrased accordingly.
Related Work section has been improved.
The terminology used related to different Sampo products have been clarified.
An extended description of the components of Sampo-UI have been added in new subsections 4.3–4.5.

Just minor issues remain.
Some sentences are confused:
- Page 2 - left column - lines 36-39: After this data-analytic visualizations can be created by opening the tabs Table, Production places, Last Known Locations, and Migrations ---> please, fix the syntax
- Page 6 - left column - line 30: can used ---> can be used
- Page 6 - left column - line 33: set generalized ---> set of generalized
- Page 9 - right column - line 29-32: For advanced network analysis tasks not are not supported in JavaScript, the component utilizes the Sparql2GraphServer Python API, as explained in Section 4.1 ---> please, fix the syntax

Review #3
Anonymous submitted on 04/Jan/2021
Suggestion:
Major Revision
Review Comment:

The authors handle almost all the comments posed by the reviewers.

However, from my point of view, the paper lacks innovation, as well as approaches for handling challenging problems, issues that are also depicted by the tool/system review criteria: "Quality, importance, and impact".

In my opinion, in order to publish a system/tool paper in a “high quality" venue/journal you have to meet the aforementioned criteria.

In any case, the authors have been done a lot of work, so I do not insist on rejection.