Improving Geo-spatial Linked Data with the Wisdom of the Crowds

Currently, there is more and more interest in geo-spatial data sources providing rich information about a huge number of interconnected geo-entities and points of interest located in the real world. Moreover, this kind of sources is one of the first to be published as linked open data. Noteworthy examples are the Geonames and GeoLinkedData initiatives. On the one hand, making available more data sources as linked open data allows querying the sources in an integrated way. On the other hand, it is known that content of geo-spatial data sources suffers from various drawbacks, mainly concerning data quality and conflicts. In this context, relevant feedbacks from users with specific experience and knowledge about POIs in a certain spatial region are considered valuable contributions to improve data quality and solve description conflicts. In this context, we propose a conceptual framework called M-PREGeD (Multi-Providers cRowd-Enhanced Geo linked Data) devoted to collect, organize and rank user-generated corrections and completions to improve accuracy and completeness of Geo-spatial Linked Data from different data sources. Metrics have been defined for both contributors and contents. In the framework, validated and ranked corrections and completions are stored as linked open data in a separate repository but linked to the original data sources. The repository can be queried in a combined way with the original data sources.